Vantage Point

Pete Travis sets the film in Salamanca, Spain, and shot it in Mexico. Photography began on 18 June 2006 in Mexico City, and the locations included the Casa de los Azulejos. To stage the script’s explosions, an exact copy of the centre of Salamanca was built in Mexico. The shoot fell in the middle of the rainy season. Travis credits cinematographer Amir Mokri and the lighting crew for making the 20 minutes the film keeps rewinding look clear and sunny; the weather was often overcast and wet. Parts changed after they were written. Rex Brooks, the news producer, was a man in the original script; Travis cast Sigourney Weaver. Howard Lewis was written as an overweight Eastern European; when Forest Whitaker showed interest the tourist was made American. Veteran Ron Blecker trained the leads as Secret Service agents, and Dennis Quaid drove most of the car work himself, bar the crashes. Quaid says he played the repeated moment the same way the entire time. It opened first in North America with $22.9 million from 3,149 cinemas. A good fit if you want each pass handed to another witness and information released a drop at a time. Not for viewers who expect the actors to open a new layer every pass; by his own account Quaid held the performance steady.