While the title, trailer and commercials imply that we'll be carefully piecing together clues to a complex assassination attempt as seen from several perspectives, the final product turns out to be a tepid thriller that promises more than it delivers.

Things start out promisingly enough. The U.S. president (William Hurt) is attending a global summit on terrorism in the scenic Spanish city of Salamanca. We see a bit of what leads up to his appearance on the dais, then suddenly he's shot. We see the same events, from the distinctly different angles of eight people in attendance, and at first are caught up in catching every nuance and gesture that might provide a clue to the source of the shots. But the movie abandons its premise about halfway in and devolves into a long and rather badly edited car chase. On top of that, quite a few loose ends are left dangling.

The various viewpoints don't quite link up. And they all employ the same rewind technique once unspooled. Stylistically, this laying out of the facts then speedily going back over them in reverse seems initially intriguing, but it gets old after about the fifth time. And when motivations are unclear, the filmmakers turn to such well-worn clichés as surprise explosions or endangered children to amp up the tension.

The positions we have access to include views from the camcorder of Forest Whitaker, an American tourist; the watchful eyes of a Secret Service agent (Dennis Quaid); and the combined cameras feeding in to a TV news producer (Sigourney Weaver). Weaver's role, while small, feels glaringly artificial. She entreats a reporter and photographers to focus on the summit, not the protesters, whom she calls "the sideshow." That undermines her credibility as a newsgatherer, because protesters are an important part of a news event, too. Also hard to buy is Quaid's ridiculously indestructible Secret Service man.

Like too many action-adventure movies that are short on plot intricacies but long on gimmick and explosives, too much is given away in the trailer.

In fact, one gets a powerful feeling of déjà vu when watching the movie. The ads seem to imply we have to be paying close attention to every nuance, and they cleverly prime moviegoers to sit up straighter and watch more closely. But, ultimately, that aspect is oversold. We don't feel terribly challenged or even seriously engaged. Audiences would probably find it more entertaining and stimulating to watch a rerun of TV's 24.