“I’ve got you.” These are words that YouTube will swallow up and regurgitate countless times if the movie “Vantage Point” becomes a huge hit. That is not a spoiler, but it is by far the most unintentionally funny moment in any movie that has come out this year so far. Watch for it toward the end.

“Vantage Point” follows several different people’s points of view as they witness a presidential assassination attempt in Spain just before the president makes an important speech. Those people with a view of the assassination attempt are a news producer (Sigourney Weaver), a couple of secret service agents (Dennis Quaid and Matthew Fox), an American tourist (Forest Whitaker), a Spanish policeman (Eduardo Noriega) and the president (William Hurt). The rest of the major players are a group of terrorists led by a man called Suarez (Said Taghmaoui).

For those of you who have seen the preview a million times, you will be happy to know that the first 50 to 60 minutes is basically what we see in the preview, but replayed about six times. If you could not tell I was being sarcastic about that. It was annoying and repetitive enough by the third time that the audience noticeably laughed/groaned when the movie rewound itself.

One character’s point of view is shown as the tragedy occurs, and then the film rewinds back to noon again and we see someone else’s P.O.V. Each time we get a little more of the story. But it’s not until after the sixth time that we finally get something juicy that advances the plot; something that lets us see what’s really going on.

It’s at this point that the movie gets interesting and exciting. There are twists, betrayals and a cool, albeit ridiculous, car chase scene. You also find out that Dennis Quaid must be a terminator because he lives through some ridiculous things.

The ending I will not divulge, but it is too coincidental and anticlimactic to live up to the build-up right before it happens. The movie suffers as a result.

For the most part the cast does what it needs to for this movie. Dennis Quaid is a hardened Secret Service agent that has taken a bullet before for the president; he is still recovering from the traumatic experience. Not much else is developed though. He seems to forget his bad memories as soon as things start going bad. It’s unrealistic when they’ve built up his psychological problems at the beginning and then those problems just don’t affect him at all later.

Forest Whitaker is a happy-go-lucky tourist caught in the middle of something he never expected to be a part of. The Oscar winner is sleepwalking for most of the movie in this role, but it doesn’t call for much anyway.

Sigourney Weaver is seen a few times as a cynical news producer in the beginning but she is forgotten halfway through and never becomes an important player in the events that take place. They could have gotten someone less expensive to play this part and it wouldn’t have affected the film.

William Hurt doesn’t have much to work with either. He plays a concerned president, that’s all there is to say. For pretty much all of the cast there is not much of anything to do except be static and play the same thing all the way through. This is not an actor’s movie, which is disappointing because there is a lot of talent to work with.

The director is Pete Travis who makes his theatrical debut with “Vantage Point.” His other credits are directing a few TV shows, nothing big. He handles the chase scene well and the middle portion after the sixth rewind is very tightly paced. I was chewing my finger nail in anticipation. The script certainly lets him down here.

The script is written by Barry Levy, his first writing credit and it shows. Most of the problems have been mentioned like the rewinding in the first act and the poor, coincidence-heavy ending. A lot of the dialogue feels like it was put in a hat, shaken, pulled out randomly and inserted into the script. There are a bunch of action-movie mainstays like, “There’s something else going on here!” and “We need you to tell us what’s going on!” and “Do we know who is behind this?” It’s just kind of melodramatic and unimaginative. But it is fun to watch and I would be the first one saying things like that if I was a Secret Service agent.

Though I have sort of been tearing apart this movie it is still entertaining. The action scenes are fun, even when they are preposterous and there is a nice amount of tension and surprise in the second act. The ending will wrap up the loose threads, but leave a lot of people feeling gypped. See it in a matinee or wait to rent it.

Luke Soin can be reached at [email protected]