Vantage Point is a more interesting movie than perhaps it realizes. In the course of barreling through an otherwise routine thriller-plot about terrorists in Spain trying to kidnap a visiting President of the United States — referred to constantly here as POTUS, which sounds like a Primus tribute band — the film reveals, almost casually, that the President (played by the always enjoyable William Hurt) has a double. (It's in the trailer, so no spoiler warning is necessary.) Since the film takes place in the present day and not, say, 1856, that's a pretty amazing conceit. How did the President acquire this double — a mirror image who must have an identical voice to pass muster in the media age? Does he keep a secret twin under lock and key, Dumas-style? Is there a more sci-fi explanation? Did he ever think of the scandal it might cause if this double got liquored up and went on Leno? Sadly, these are all questions which Vantage Point has no interest in answering.

Instead, the film pushes another gimmick to the main stage; the assassination of the double (who's preparing to make a speech) and the immediate aftermath are re-run for us, the audience, again and again, each time from a different character's point of view. (Inevitable comparisons to Rashomon are inexact — this film isn't created out of the varying interpretations of eye witnesses, it just places those witnesses at different locales in an objectively real setting, and tracks back to tell each story.) The witnesses include a tourist with a camcorder (conspicuously branded with a Sony logo) played by Forest Whitaker, a sweaty and possibly hung-over Secret Service agent played by Dennis Quaid, Lost's Matthew Fox as his young beefcake partner, and a fidgety local cop played by Eduardo Noriega. Also appearing for a combined total of two minutes are James Cameron survivors Sigourney Weaver and Zoe Saldana, as a bunkered news producer and on-the-scene reporter, respectively. That the film gives these two actresses nothing to do is nearly as inexplicable as its "double" twist.

When Vantage Point is staying with Quaid and Fox as they hunt the suspected assassins (including the arrestingly beautiful Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer) it's a perfectly serviceable thriller with high production values and some better-than-average car chases. Fox is more or less a blank slate, while Quaid is able to sell the idea of a 50-ish Secret Service agent pulling out all the stops to save the day, releasing what one presumes is decades worth of tension built up from idling in the hallways of swank hotels, talking into his thumb and forefinger. Momentum is lost, however, whenever Whitaker's mini-drama is returned to the forefront — his character thinks a lost little girl in the crowd is somehow in danger and aims to protect her. Surprisingly, the scene of President Hurt in "exile" — he can't very well be seen after the world thinks he's just been blown away — are also lackluster. Director Pete Travis allows numerous opportunities to slip through his fingers in that vignette; some comedy, or some additional growling from the great Bruce McGill as a frustrated Presidential aide, would have gone a long way.

Often with such gimmick films it's impossible not to wonder if they would have played better straight-up, without all the hoopla. In the case of Vantage Point, the answer is decidedly yes. The elements that work in the film — the car chases, the pursuit of the suspects, Quaid's storyline — are all forward-looking, moving towards a conclusion and only slowed down by the poorly paced track-backs to Forest Whitaker's story-within-a-story and the internal drama between the terrorists, which is much ado about nothing. This is a film about chasers and those being chased, and everything else is a distraction. That said, a director's cut that included the entire backstory of how the President managed to find an exact double and get him on the payroll would be fascinating.