Vantage Point

U.S. President Henry Ashton (William Hurt) attends a political summit in Salamanca, Spain to promote an international treaty. Displayed with eight differing viewpoints, an assassination attempt on the president occurs, relayed in a time span of 23 minutes. Each time the events unfold from the beginning, a new vantage point is shown revealing additional details, which ultimately completes the story of what actually took place during the incident.

From the first vantage point, GNN producer Rex Brooks (Sigourney Weaver), directs various media personnel from a mobile television studio as the president arrives at the gathering. Mayor De Soto (Jose Carlos Rodriguez) delivers a short speech and then introduces the president, who is shot twice as he greets the crowd from the podium. An explosion outside the plaza soon follows. Moments later, the podium itself is destroyed by a secondary explosion, killing and injuring numerous people. As the smoke clears, GNN reporter Angie Jones (Zoe Saldana) is seen lying dead in the rubble.

The second vantage point follows Secret Service agents Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid) and Kent Taylor (Matthew Fox). Barnes notices a curtain fluttering in the window of a nearby building that was allegedly vacated. He also observes American tourist Howard Lewis (Forest Whitaker) filming the audience. After the president is shot, Barnes tackles a man rushing to the podium named Enrique (Eduardo Noriega). Taylor pursues a lead to a potential assassin. Following the second explosion, Barnes barges into the GNN production studio and asks to view their footage. He calls Taylor, who reports the direction of the suspected assassin's escape route. Barnes then views an image on one of the camera's live feeds that startles him and prompts him to run out.

In the third vantage point, Enrique, who claims to be a Spanish police officer assigned to protecting the mayor of Salamanca, sees his girlfriend Veronica (Ayelet Zurer), being embraced by a stranger and overhears them speaking about meeting under an overpass. When he confronts her, Veronica assures Enrique of her love for him as he hands her a bag. When the president is shot, Enrique rushes onto the stage to protect the mayor, but is tackled by Barnes. While being detained, he witnesses Veronica toss the bag he gave her under the podium, causing the second explosion. Enrique escapes as the agents who previously had him in custody, mount a chase while firing shots in his direction, failing to subdue him. Enrique confronts an unseen individual at the overpass and asks if he is surprised to see him still alive.

The fourth vantage point revolves around Howard Lewis who is chatting with a man called Sam (Said Taghmaoui), while a little girl named Anna (Alicia Zapien), bumps into him and drops her ice cream. Later, Lewis notices Barnes looking at the curtain fluttering in the window of a nearby building, and captures the footage with his camcorder. Following the second explosion at the podium, Lewis chases Enrique and the pursuing Secret Service agents. At the overpass, Lewis views the pair of agents from afar shooting in the direction of Enrique as he greets an individual in a police uniform under the overpass. Seriously wounded, Enrique falls to the ground. Lewis sees Anna who had earlier become separated from her mother, trying to cross a busy intersection. An ambulance races down the road about to hit Anna, as Lewis runs out to save her.

The fifth vantage point begins as President Ashton, having been informed of a credible assassination threat, has returned to his hotel room with his aides while his body double proceeds to the gathering in the plaza. The first explosion, which occurs just outside the hotel, is revealed to be a device detonated by a suicide bomber disguised as a bellhop. Seconds later, a masked assailant bursts into the president's room, shoots his advisers and then proceeds in abducting Ashton.

By the sixth vantage point, terrorist Suarez, previously seen as Sam; shoots Ashton's body double using a remote-controlled automatic rifle placed in an adjacent window next to the one with the fluttering curtain that had drawn Barnes' attention earlier. The rifle is retrieved by Taylor, whom Barnes sees leaving the scene wearing a Spanish policeman's uniform on one of the GNN live feeds, even though he tells Barnes that he's in pursuit of the assassin over the phone. Barnes realizes Taylor is actually part of the terror plot. The man Enrique saw embracing Veronica is revealed to be sharpshooter Javier (Edgar Ramirez), whose brother is being held hostage to ensure Javier's cooperation with the terrorists. Javier kills the guards and aides within the hotel, and kidnaps the president.

Ashton is later placed in an ambulance with Suarez and Veronica disguised as medics. Javier joins Taylor in a police car to a planned rendezvous at the overpass. Barnes commandeers a car and chases Taylor and Javier. Barnes however, gets into a collision with a truck, allowing the duo to escape. At the overpass, Enrique, who did not die in the blast at the podium as intended, confronts Javier and Taylor. Enraged, Javier shoots Enrique, mistakenly believing he had knowledge of his kidnapped brother's whereabouts. Javier is then shot and killed by Taylor when he demands to be brought to his brother, who had been killed earlier by Suarez. Enrique dies of his wounds as Barnes reaches the scene on foot firing several rounds at Taylor, who attempts to flee. After crashing his car, a critically injured Taylor is dragged out by Barnes. He orders Taylor to reveal where the president has been taken, but Taylor dies. Meanwhile, Ashton regains consciousness in the ambulance and attacks Veronica, distracting her and Suarez just as Anna runs into their path. Suarez swerves causing the ambulance to flip over just as Lewis pulls Anna out of its way. Barnes runs to the ambulance where he sees Veronica lying dead. He shoots Suarez dead and rescues the president.

This is a wonderful movie but I strongly recommend watching it from beginning to end. It can be hard to follow if you miss any part of it. I loved this movie though. It definitely made you think "Who did it?" just like in the game of clue.

The Tourist

The film opens with Elise Clifton-Ward (Angelina Jolie) being followed by French Police, working with Scotland Yard under the direction of Inspector John Acheson (Paul Bettany). Acheson has spent years hunting Elise's old lover, Alexander Pearce, who owes £744 million in back taxes and is believed to have received 20 million dollars worth of plastic surgery to alter his appearance completely. At a cafe, Elise receives written instructions from Pearce: board a train to Venice, pick out a man who resembles Pearce, and make the police believe that this decoy is Pearce himself. Elise burns the note, then manages to evade the police and board the train.

On the train, Elise picks Frank Tupelo, an American community college teacher. She spends much time with him, seeming to start a romance. In the meanwhile, the police have managed to salvage the ashes of her burned note and assembled them to extract information regarding her rendezvous as well as her ruse. But an informer from the police station mistakenly communicates to Reginald Shaw, a gangster from whom Pearce as accountant stole $2.3 billion, that Pearce is travelling with Elise on the train to Venice. Shaw immediately proceeds to Venice.

Elise invites Frank to stay with her at the hotel room that has been arranged for her in Venice. Pearce leaves further instructions for Elise to attend a ball. Elise abandons Frank, who is then chased by Shaw's men. While trying to escape from them, Frank is detained by the Italian police ostensibly for his own safety, only to have a corrupt inspector turn him over to Shaw's men in exchange for the bounty that has been placed on Pearce's head. Elise rescues Frank just before he is handed over, leading Shaw's men on an extended boat chase and escaping. She leaves Frank at the airport with his passport and money, urging him to go home for his own safety.

Elise is revealed to be a Scotland Yard undercover agent who may have become Pearce's ally. Because of her fears for Frank, she agrees to participate in a sting operation. At the ball, as Elise wanders around trying to spot Pearce in the crowd, an envelope is placed on the table in front of her by a man who then quickly disappears into the crowd. Elise sees that the envelope is for her, and believes that the man must be Pearce himself. She tries to follow him through the crowd, calling out his name, but is stopped by Frank who has managed to enter inside under a pretext.

Frank claims to be in love with her, and invites her to dance with him. But he is hauled away by the police, while Elise opens the envelope and finds a note mentioning a rendezvous point. She then heads off in her boat to this new rendezvous point. Shaw and his men tail her in their boat; both parties are followed discreetly by the police boat in which Frank is held handcuffed to stop him from obstructing the investigation.

When Elise arrives at the destination, Shaw takes her prisoner, threatening to harm her unless she reveals the location of the stolen money. The police monitor the situation inside the rendezvous room through audio and video links. Despite Elise's peril, Acheson repeatedly turns down police requests to intervene with their snipers. While the police are occupied in monitoring the situation, Frank escapes from the police boat and confronts Shaw, claiming to be Pearce who has undergone plastic surgery and offering to open the safe if Elise is allowed to leave safely. Shaw is skeptical and makes a counter offer that Frank should open the safe if he does not want to see Elise being cut up. Chief Inspector Jones (Timothy Dalton) arrives at the police stake-out, overrides Acheson, and orders the police snipers to fire into the room, killing Shaw and his men. Jones lifts Elise's suspension and also terminates her employment.

Acheson receives a radio message that Pearce has been found not far from the rendezvous point, and rushes to the location where police have detained the suspect. But the man claims to be just a tourist who has merely been following instructions texted to his mobile phone, to be present at certain locations, for which he has been receiving payments. Meanwhile, Elise tells Frank that she loves him, but she also loves Pearce. Frank then suggests a "solution" to this dilemma; to Elise's surprise, he opens the safe by entering the correct code, thus revealing that he is really Alexander Pearce. He and Elise then take the money and depart, leaving a cheque in the safe for the full amount of the taxes he owes. The police find the cheque when they return and blow the safe open. Acheson now realizes that Frank has indeed been Pearce all along, and wants to pursue him; but Jones determines that, with the taxes now paid fully, Pearce's only crime is that he stole money from a now-dead gangster. Jones orders the case to be closed. Frank and Elise sail away to a new life together, with Elise taking in and getting used to the new and completely altered face of her old lover.

Taken

The 2008 movie starring Liam Neeson was incredible. I have to say it was a lot better than the critics gave it credit for. Neeson's character in this movie, Bryan has a set a special gifts that he acquired over a interesting career. He is now retired and just wants to spend more time with his daughter, Kim. Kim decides to go to Europe to follow U2's european concert tour. However, upon arriving in Paris, Kim and her friend, Amanda meet Peter. Peter is a handsome stranger who offers to take their picture. He then invites them to go to a party. Kim is reluctant, however Amanda pressures her into saying yes. They agree to the party and Peter learns where the two are staying when he asks them where to pick them up at for the party. However,  he discreetly calls some men and informs them of the girls' whereabouts as soon as they leave.

Bryan calls Kim that evening. While they are talking, she sees several unknown men enter the apartment and abduct Amanda. Bryan then starts recording the call and tells Kim go to the next room and hide under the bed, and to shout out information about the kidnappers when they come for her. Kim is grabbed by one of the men, but she shouts a description out before she is taken away. Afterwards, Bryan realizes that someone has picked up the phone. He informs the listener of his specific set of skills and says if they let Kim go, he will not pursue them, but if they do not, "I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you". The listener then replies "Good luck" and destroys the phone. Bryan then sends Sam the recording for analysis.

Sam later informs Bryan that the kidnappers are members of the Albanian Mafia, who specialize in kidnapping teenagers to sell them into sexual slavery. Bryan and Lenore are told that if Kim is not rescued within 96 hours (or 4 days), she will likely never be found again. Bryan flies to Paris that evening using Stuart's connection with a private jet company. After landing in Paris, Bryan breaks into the apartment. He finds a reflection of Peter in a photograph recorded on the memory card of Kim's cellphone and returns to the airport where he finds Peter charming another potential victim. Attacking and brutally beating Peter, he is attacked by Peter's colleague. Beating the man down while Peter escapes, he then chases Peter who jumps from the overpass only to be killed by a passing truck.

Bryan seeks help from an old friend, Jean-Claude, a bureaucrat and former field agent, now within French intelligence. Jean-Claude tells Bryan where to start looking, but warns him not to make trouble. He meets an Albanian businessman who is a translator and later converses with a hooker only to be intimidated by her boss whom Bryan plants a listening device on the back of his collar. With the translator's help, the trail leads to a makeshift brothel at a construction site. He recognizes Kim's jacket on a girl there and takes her with him, killing several guards including the boss of the hooker he met earlier. Jean-Claude calls for a meeting in an open place and Bryan speaks to him through a radio from the Notre Dame de Paris. Jean Claude's boss is angry about the mess Bryan has made and wants to send him back to the U.S, which Bryan angrily refuses, saying that he will not stop until he finds his daughter.

Back at a hotel, the girl recovers and gives Bryan the address where she met Kim. At the site, he bluffs his way in pretending to be a corrupt police officer looking for a bribe. After a short conversation Bryan identifies Marko Hoxha, the man he spoke to on the phone. He knocks him out and kills all the other criminals. Searching the house, he finds several captives and Amanda, dead of an overdose. Enraged at what he has seen, Bryan then tortures Marko by using a makeshift electric chair in the basement. Although originally spitting in Bryan's face (twice) Marko then desperately tells him that because Kim is a virgin, she was sold to a man named Patrice Saint-Clair, because virgins are very valuable at the black market. Satisfied that Marko has told him all he knows, Bryan switches the power back on and walks out, leaving Marko to die.

Bryan then turns up unexpectedly to dinner with Jean-Claude and his wife, where he discovers that Jean-Claude knows things that he is not telling him. Jean-Claude attempts to shoot Bryan, but Bryan has unloaded Jean-Claude's pistol. Bryan then shoots Jean-Claude's wife in the shoulder, and threatens to kill her if Jean-Claude does not tell him where to find Saint-Clair. Bryan leaves the scene and goes to Saint-Clair's mansion, using Jean-Claude's card as an ID. He disables several guards to get downstairs where he finds a secret slave auction in progress. Kim is the last to be sold. Bryan forces an Arab bidder at gunpoint to buy her, but is immediately caught. When Saint-Clair learns who he is, he orders his men to kill him, but Bryan overcomes his captors and then tortures Saint-Clair into revealing where to find Kim. Saint-Clair pleads "It wasn't personal", but Bryan angrily replies "It was all personal to me" before killing him.

Bryan leaves the mansion, where he spots Kim getting into a car. He follows the car and then jumps onto a yacht where Kim has been taken. He dispatches all the henchmen including the Arab bidder. Badly injured he then enters a bedroom to find the buyer holding Kim at knife point. The man tries to bargain but Bryan shoots him in the head. He then hugs Kim who sobs "You came for me" and Bryan replies "I told you I would."

Back in Los Angeles, Bryan reunites Kim with Lenore and Stuart who make it clear to Bryan that he now has their respect. Later, Bryan surprises Kim by taking her to see Sheerah for a personal singing lesson.