The president is in Spain, attending a global summit on terrorism. Secret Service agents Barnes and Taylor are in charge of protecting him. But Barnes took a bullet for the prez just six months ago and may or may not be up to the challenge again so soon.

"What're the chances he freaks out?" whispers one agent to another.

"I'd say about 50-50," replies Barnes, having overheard them.

In the stomach-churning opening sequence of "Vantage Point," Barnes (Dennis Quaid) and Taylor (Matthew Fox) nervously escort President Ashton (William Hurt) through half-cheering, half-booing crowds to the dignitaries platform in Salamanca's central plaza. He steps forward to speak. Two shots ring out. He falls. Chaos erupts, followed by carnage: Two bombs explode.

---

'Vantage Point'

3 stars = Good
Ratings explained

• Starring: Dennis Quaid, William Hurt, Forest Whitaker, Sigourney Weaver.
• Rating: PG-13 for sequences of intense action violence, disturbing images and brief strong language.
• Web site: vantagepoint-movie.com

---

Most of this is seen from the vantage point -- and video monitors -- of no-nonsense TV news director Sigourney Weaver in a nearby trailer, barking out orders to her reporters and cameramen, most of whom will be momentarily dead.

Scene Two, "23 minutes earlier," is not so much a flashback as a replay -- the first of half a dozen from different viewpoints. This one belongs to Howard Lewis (Forest Whitaker), who was videotaping the event for his kids back home. The accidental tourist-turned-accidental photojournalist camcorded the guy who shot the president. He's kind and rewinds for Agent Barnes, who sees something else, even more disturbing, on the tape.

Each succeeding segment divulges a little more information, as if they were multiple Zapruder films shot from multiple angles. Agent Barnes will need to play all these angles to apprehend the full complement of palm-pilot cops and killers, often disguised as each other.

(Beware the vertigo-inducing hand-held camerawork in a series of car and foot chases from which no one could emerge alive -- but many do.)

Quaid makes a good, stolid, long-suffering hero. Hurt is a wonderful president -- he prepared for the role by having a master class with Bill Clinton! And you gotta love Whitaker's sincerity.

But you don't gotta love little orphan Anna, the girl Whitaker gets stuck with for shameless emotional overkill. As if he and we didn't have enough to worry about, she gets separated from her mom and becomes his responsibility to rescue, further overloading an already overloaded story and increasing the unlikelihood of the grand finale's convergences -- the mathematical odds of which are roughly those of Sophie Masloff colliding with Saturn.

Irish director Pete Travis successfully creates excitement, but he and screenwriter Barry Levy are not working with a new device, after all. Fragmented evidence, angles and replays have pieced together the mosaic of truth in many a tale, from "Rashomon" to "Blow-Up" and "Z."

In life and art but film above all, everything depends on POV -- your point of view.