Vantage Point (2008)

Vantage Point is a 2008 mystery thriller film from Columbia Pictures, written by Barry Levy and directed by Pete Travis. It stars Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, Forest Whitaker with Sigourney Weaver, Édgar Ramírez and William Hurt. It was released on February 22, 2008. The film is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for sequences of intense violence and action, some disturbing images, and brief strong language.

The film is set in Salamanca, Spain, but it was mostly filmed in Mexico; only some of the scenes were shot in Salamanca. United States President Henry Ashton (William Hurt) is holding an anti-terrorism summit in Salamanca. Over a twenty-three-minute period, an assassination attempt on the President unfolds. The film loops through this period over and over, each time from the perspective of a different participant, adding a new piece to the larger puzzle with each loop.
[edit] Rex Brooks' perspectiveThe first perspective is that of television news producer Rex Brooks (Sigourney Weaver) who directs various "GNN" cameramen and news anchors as the President arrives. Just as the mayor of Salamanca finishes his speech and the President steps up to the podium, he is shot twice. An explosion in the distance soon follows, and a few minutes later the podium is destroyed by another explosion, killing GNN's news reporter Angie; she is filmed lying dead until an analyst, Grace, begs Rex to kill the feed.
[edit] Thomas Barnes' and Kent Taylor perspectiveThe second perspective is that of U.S. Secret Service agents Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid) and Kent Taylor (Matthew Fox). While the mayor is speaking, Barnes notices a moving curtain in a nearby building. Agents sent to investigate find a fan that they report had been left on. Barnes also spots a man (Forest Whitaker) with a video camera in the crowd. After the President is shot, he tackles a man rushing the podium, who is then dragged off by other agents. Barnes and Taylor run up to the man they saw earlier and Barnes insists on viewing the footage on the video camera. Barnes is fairly sure that he spotted the shooter in one of the windows and the man thinks he might have caught the assassin on film. Taylor announces his intentions to go after the assassin. Barnes wants to come with, but Taylor tells Barnes to stay in order to avoid being blamed for failing to spot the assassin in time. Taylor goes off in pursuit as Barnes continues to review the footage. He sees something that alerts him to a probable bomb under the podium and starts running but is too late to alert anyone. Once the podium is destroyed, Barnes catches sight of a GNN cameraman fleeing the destruction, and heads for their van to get a better idea of what happened. He barges into the mobile production room and orders Brooks to show him their footage. While they are rewinding the film, Barnes talks to Taylor, who reports being in hot pursuit of the suspect and in need of immediate assistance. Barnes attempts to reach the Secret Service temporary command center (with call sign "Control"), but does not get a response. His perspective ends when he catches sight of something shocking on one of the live feeds.

Enrique's perspective This is followed by the perspective of Enrique (Eduardo Noriega), a police officer assigned to protect the mayor. He spots his girlfriend (Veronica) being embraced by a stranger (Suarez) and overhears them speaking about a meeting under a nearby underpass. When he confronts her, she assures him in Spanish that she loves him and him alone. She then asks if he has brought her bag and Enrique nods and hands it over. When the President is shot, Enrique rushes onto the stage to protect the mayor and is tackled by Agent Barnes. As he is in Secret Service custody, Enrique watches his girlfriend toss the bag he gave her under the podium. Realizing that there must have been a bomb in the bag, he breaks custody and starts running to the underpass that he heard about earlier while Secret Service agents attempt to recapture him but fail to do so while chasing him through several buildings. His scene ends as he confronts someone at the underpass, asking if they are surprised to see him still alive. Like in the previous scenes, the viewer is not shown the "surprise element".
Howard Lewis' perspectiveThe next perspective is that of Howard Lewis (Forest Whitaker), an American tourist who thinks he’s captured the shooter on his video camera while recording the event for his family back home. While waiting for the president to speak, he makes small talk with a man named Sam and is accidentally bumped into by a little girl named Anna, causing her ice cream cone to fall to the ground. He apologizes in Spanish and offers to buy her a new one, but her mother declines. He notices one of the Secret Service agents, Agent Barnes, looking at a window and aims his camera at it before pointing it at the podium again. After the president is shot, he stands and films the pandemonium while the crowd flees. Barnes runs up to him and requests to view the film in Lewis' video camera, they both see a woman throw a bag under the podium, which is what alerted Barnes in his scene. After the bomb explodes, he picks up Anna, who has lost her mother, while chasing Enrique and the pursuing agents. Dropping Anna off with a female Spanish police officer, Lewis continues to run after Enrique. Lewis is standing on the pedestrian overpass when police officers fire in Enrique's direction and Enrique collapses, mortally wounded. A single policeman approaches the fallen Enrique from the other direction and crouches down beside him. Lewis then spies Anna, who has run away from the police officer, standing at the edge of the very busy road that runs under the overpass. She sees her mother on the other side and starts to run toward her, much to Lewis' horror. As an ambulance is seconds away from running Anna over, Lewis runs out on to the street to save her, ending his perspective.
President Ashton's perspective The scene moves on to the perspective of the real President Ashton. Unknown to the public and GNN, and initially to the film audience, it is a body double of the president that has been shot. Having been informed of a credible assassination threat, he had actually returned to his hotel and was awaiting his body double giving his speech. During this transition to the hotel, the president's advisor Phil McCullough is advocating an attack on a supposedly related terrorist camp in Morocco. Watching on television, Ashton watches his double walk to his seat and says comically "He doesn't even look like me." Ashton is upset when he sees that Tom Barnes, who had previously saved him from another assassination is being put out front to test his recovery. Shortly after, the body double is shot, much to the surprise of the president and his advisors. The immediate reaction of his advisor is to coordinate with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to authorize the camp attack. The president refuses this, citing the fact that he is supposed to be "dead" at that moment, as well as how America can harness the sympathy of the world given the circumstances. At that moment, the explosion in the distance heard before is revealed to be a suicide bomber in the lobby of his hotel. Seconds later, a masked assailant bursts into the room and kills his guards and advisors, ending the president's scene.
The terrorist plan The final perspective is that of the terrorists orchestrating the attack. The assassination attempt on the double is revealed to be an elaborate ruse, done by remote control via an automated rifle. The rifle is then retrieved by Secret Service agent Taylor, who is then spotted on the live feed by Barnes as he was leaving the scene in a Spanish policeman's uniform, clearly lying to Barnes who he was talking to on his cellphone. Meanwhile, Javier (Edgar Ramirez), the assassin who has made his way into President Ashton's room (and who is working for the terrorists only because his brother is being held hostage), leads Ashton to the elevator, where Ashton is knocked unconscious and quietly loaded onto an ambulance. Javier joins Taylor, with both followed by Barnes.
At the underpass, Enrique confronts Javier and Taylor, only to be shot by the Secret Service agents pursuing him. Javier is in turn shot by Barnes, and finished off by Taylor after being coldly informed of his brother's murder. Taylor crashes his car while attempting to escape from Barnes, and is fatally injured. At the same time, Ashton awakens in the ambulance and tries to take out his captors by hitting Veronica in the head with a pole, distracting them as the little girl walks in front of the ambulance. The driver swerves and flips the ambulance just as Lewis gets the girl out of harms way. Veronica is killed instantly in the crash and the terrorist who survived the crash tries to shoot them, but Barnes kills him. Ashton is then rescued by Barnes.
The film concludes with Lewis talking on the phone with his wife and kids and the audience finds out that the public was unaware about the elaborate plot that is never revealed to the public, according to a news report shown at the end of the movie who the reporter has been told that a lone assassin was shot and killed.

Borat

Borat Sagdiyev (played by Sacha Baron Cohen), a popular Kazakh television personality, leaves his homeland for the "Greatest Country in the World," the "US and A" to make a documentary film at the behest of the fictitious Kazakh Ministry of Information. He leaves behind his mother, his wife, Oxana, and the town rapist, and brings along his producer Azamat Bagatov (played by Ken Davitian), and his pet chicken, Buh-Kaw. Much of the movie features unscripted vignettes of Borat interviewing and interacting with Americans, who believe he is a foreigner with no understanding of American customs.

While in New York, he sees an episode of Baywatch on television and immediately falls in love with Pamela Anderson. While interviewing a panel of feminists, he learns her name and that she lives in California. Informed via telegram that, much to his delight, his violent wife has been molested and killed by a bear, he resolves to go to California to make Anderson his new wife. Borat and Azamat were supposed to remain in New York, but Borat justifies the trip by telling his skeptical producer that "Pearl Harbor is there. So is Texas." Because Azamat is afraid of a repetition of the September 11, 2001 attacks, which he believes were the work of the Jews, he will not fly, so Borat takes driving lessons and buys a dilapidated ice-cream truck for the journey.

During the cross-country trip, Borat acquires a Baywatch television show booklet at a yard sale, and continues gathering footage for his documentary. He meets gay pride parade participants, politicians (including Alan Keyes and Bob Barr) and African American youths playing cee-lo. He is also interviewed on live television and proceeds to disrupt the weather report. Visiting a rodeo, the reporter, after first exciting the crowd with jingoistic, pro-U.S. remarks, sings a fictional Kazakhstan national anthem to the tune of "The Star-Spangled Banner", which receives a strong negative reaction. Staying at a bed-and-breakfast, Borat and his producer are stunned to learn their hosts are Jewish. Fearful of death ("or worse") at the hands of their hosts, the two "escape" after throwing money toward cockroaches, believing they are their Jewish hosts self-transformed. While Azamat advises a return to New York (where, he believes, "at least there are no Jews"), Borat attempts to purchase a handgun to defend himself against Jews. When told he cannot buy a gun because he is not an American citizen, Borat purchases a bear (which he names after his late wife) for protection.

Borat later attends a private dinner at an eating club in the South, at which he (unintentionally) insults or otherwise offends the other guests, and visits an antique shop with a display of Confederate heritage items, breaking glass and crockery.

The journey is interrupted when Borat, just out of the bathtub, exits the bathroom of his hotel room and sees Azamat masturbating over a picture of Pamela Anderson in the Baywatch book. Borat becomes enraged and reveals that to get Pamela Anderson was his real motive for travelling to California. Azamat becomes livid at Borat's deception, and the situation escalates into a fully nude brawl, with what have been described as homoerotic undertones,^[5] which spills out into the hallway, a crowded elevator, and ultimately into a packed ballroom filled with mortgage brokers at a convention. The two are finally separated by security guards.

As a result, Azamat abandons Borat, taking his passport, all of their money, and their bear, whose head is later seen inside Azamat's motel refrigerator. Borat begins to hitchhike to California, but is soon picked up by Anthony, Justin, and David, drunken fraternity brothers from the University of South Carolina. On learning the reason for his trip, they show him the Pam and Tommy sex video, revealing that she is not the virgin he thought she was. After leaving the three students, Borat becomes despondent, burning the Baywatch booklet and, by mistake, his return ticket to Kazakhstan. He regains his faith after attending a United Pentecostal camp meeting, at which Republican U.S. Representative Chip Pickering and Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice James W. Smith, Jr. are present. He learns to forgive Azamat and Pamela. He accompanies church members on a bus to Los Angeles and disembarks to find Azamat dressed as Oliver Hardy (though Borat thinks that he is dressed as Adolf Hitler). The two reconcile and Azamat tells Borat where to find Pamela Anderson.

Borat finally comes face-to-face with Anderson at a book signing at a Virgin Megastore. After showing Anderson his "traditional marriage sack," Borat pursues her throughout the store in an attempt to abduct her until he is tackled and handcuffed by security guards. Afterwards, Borat seeks out and marries a prostitute named Luenell, whom he had befriended earlier in the film, and returns to Kazakhstan with her. The final scene shows the changes that Borat's observations in America have brought to his village, including the apparent conversion of the people to Christianity (the Kazakh version of which includes crucifixion of Jews) and the introduction of computer-based technology, such as iPods, laptop computers and a high-definition, LCD television.