If you're wondering what type of influence 24 has had on the film industry, look no further than Vantage Point. It's a thriller that has been called "old-fashioned" due its limited use of CGI, but feels more like the brainchild of a hardcore Jack Bauer fan than anything else. With its Rashomon-esque blending of viewpoints, Vantage Point zips along like a few episodes of Fox's hit show crammed into one 90-minute movie. Like 24, the overlapping and interlocking plotlines of Vantage Point crumble apart under even the slightest examination. But let's be honest, most viewers won't ask those types of questions while the bullets are flying. Vantage Point is a totally ridiculous movie, but I mean that as a compliment. If you're prone to asking questions about why Jack would do some of the insane things he's done on 24, then go see something else this week. But if you can leave your disbelief at the door, you're unlikely to be disappointed by Vantage Point.

Vantage Point opens with an outdoor rally during a summit meeting between world leaders in Salamanca, Spain. We first see the action unfold through the eyes of a cable news network director played by Sigourney Weaver. As she cuts from camera to camera, we get glimpses of our other main characters, including Secret Service Agent Thomas Barnes (a great Dennis Quaid), who took a bullet for the President a year earlier and is on his first assignment back, fellow Agent Kent Taylor (Matthew Fox), an American tourist (Forest Whitaker), a local cop (Edgar Ramirez), and, of course, the President himself (a perfectly cast William Hurt). As the cameras roll, we watch the President get assassinated, hear an explosion in the distance, and then see a much larger explosion underneath the rally stage. All of this happens in about 16 minutes of nearly real time. After the big bang, the film jogs back to the beginning and we see many of the same events again, but this time through the eyes of Agent Barnes. More details are revealed (Barnes thought he saw the shooter, Taylor chased after him, etc.) and the action goes slightly beyond the end of the first "vantage point." Of course, Vantage Point then hits rewind again - and so on and so on - until the whole story has been told. The action of Vantage Point actually takes place in a smaller window of time than the running time of the movie itself, but the film rarely feels repetitive.

The basic gimmick for Vantage Point might be the film's biggest strength. One could easily argue that the film wouldn't be that interesting without it, but that's like saying 24 wouldn't be interesting without its real-time structure - the two are inseparable. Vantage Point is a roller coaster ride of a movie, one of those flicks like last summer's Live Free or Die Hard that relies purely on momentum to keep your disbelief suspended, and director Pete Travis rarely allows the pace to slow enough for the plot holes to shine through. The minute you start to question the point-of-view cheats or the machinations of the most overly complex assassination attempt in history, Travis and his team throw another action sequence or plot twist into the mix to distract you. And it works. Vantage Point isn't going to redefine the thriller (although the car chase in the final act is one of the best of the last few years), but it never aspires to anything that lofty. Based on the critical theory that a movie should be judged based on what it tries to do, it's hard to get too critical of Vantage Point, a film that just wants to give you a thrill ride for 90 minutes and rarely fails to do just that.