The US president is being assassinated on a Spanish town square while trying to set up an international peace conference against terrorism. In slightly updated Rashomon style, the events leading to the assassination and beyong are being re-told from various characters’ perspectives.
If you approach a story with this script twisting technique, you need to turn the plot upside down in every iteration. Here, this surprisingly does not happen. The first interesting plot twist happens after 50 minutes, when you have already fallen asleep after the first 34 or so repetitions of the same story, without each perspective adding anything surprising. With the unravelling of the assassination plot, the film actually gets quite thrilling – but very soon all mysteriousness is gone and all is reduced to a giant car chase. I keep repeating that I find car chases seriously boring, but Hollywood does not listen to their audiences. You have to give them that the scenery is nice, and it may be the first major Hollywood car chase involving an Opel Corsa. And wasting Forest Whitaker like that… having him run around with a camcorder in his hand… a shame. Oh and Sigourney Weaver sits around, as well.
thomas4cinema 