What a great idea for a movie. Take one catastrophic event - the assasination of a U.S. president making an important political speech abroad in Spain - and tell it from the vantage point of eight different people with eight different perspectives. Then unravel the plot through multiple flashbacks, each with a different piece of the puzzle to help propel the plot forward and determine the killer.
The only problem is that the plot didn't do much propelling, and by the third time you're forced to watch the same event over again, as a viewer you beging to get a little bored. Make that A LOT bored. I watched this on DVD with my wife, and several times I just stood up and went into the other room to sort the mail or fold laundry - anything to escape this stinker.
It had such promise too, with a star-studded cast the likes of which any 70s disaster film would have embraced: Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, Forest Whitaker, Sigourney Weaver, William Hurt...but none could combat the myriad of plot holes, plot problems, location issues, and overdone film staples - most notably the car chase, the variety we've seen over and over again.
Want to see a good car chase? Rent "Ronin," "The Transporter," or any "Bourne" film. Want to see a good film about assasination? Watch either version of "The Manchurian Candidate."
But definitely skip this turkey.
This film gets one-half measly star, only because I did manage to somehow see the film through to the finish after the mail was sorted and the laundry was folded.
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