DVD reviews: Vantage Point | Leatherheads

Published on Friday 1 August 2008 17:32

VANTAGE POINT (12) £19.99 Director: Pete Travis Running time: 86 minutes ***

It can be a dangerous day when the American president gives a public speech in a foreign country. Which is why, in Vantage Point, it's no surprise when President Ashton (William Hurt) is assassinated in a large square in Salamanca, Spain, amidst the war on terror. What is surprising is the number of times the action is replayed from different perspectives – eight in total – in an attempt to reveal the truth about what happened.

The witnesses include a TV news producer (Sigourney Weaver), a tourist with a video camera (Forest Whitaker), and a secret service agent (Dennis Quaid), whose partner Kent Taylor (Matthew Fox), provides the action highlight of the film in an impressive Bourne-esque car chase. But the film wears the tag of 'political thriller' very lightly, generally avoiding getting into gritty territory about the reasons behind the terrorist attack.

As the stories overlap, there are some good twists, but perhaps not enough to stop the film suffering from repetitive strain injury.

LEATHERHEADS (PG) 15.99

Director: George Clooney

Running time: 110 minutes

**

George Clooney in a film about American football? The fact that it's set in the style-saturated 1920s perhaps makes this a less surprising proposition, but not a better one. Clooney directs and takes a lead turn, but this time not even his good looks and charm can save this indulgence.

Dodge Connolly (Clooney) plays for the Duluth Bulldogs, the down and outs of the football league, who hold out hopes for a revival in fortunes when a former war hero, and amateur star player, turns up and offers financial backing to pull them up off the subs' bench.

Hot on the trail of a story which smells too good to be true, however, is Rene Zellweger as reporter Lexie Littleton. It should sizzle with enough chemistry to score a dramatic touchdown, but the script and staging is all just a little too formulaic and lacking in any substance. Which just goes to prove that two good-looking leads don't always make a film right.