First Hit: After the 3rd review of the same event through a different character’s perspective I wanted the film to just get going, but no we were subject to the same scene again and again and….
This could have been a good film. It certainly had some wonderful actors including Sigourney Weaver, Eduardo Noriega, Dennis Quaid, Matthew, Forest Whitaker, and William Hurt but the misuse of this stellar cast is extraordinary in its failure to make a cohesive film.
It is painful to sit in a theater and after the 3rd rewind to have the audience collectively sigh, grown, and giggle proves the director missed the target.
I suppose Pete Travis felt that to explain this complicated intricate plot he had to show all the characters involved and their relations to the two bombings and shooting. I’m not sure how I would have approached it, however, each time I started to get into the character on the screen; the film rewound and started all over again with a new character.
It is as if each character needed to be the lead character. By the time the film finally moves along there was this anxiousness that we’d have to go back and sit through the opening scene again. When the film takes off it is a pretty good action film.
The best acting in the film was done by a resurging Dennis Quaid. It would have been good to focus on just this character and build the film around this.
Overall: Could have been a good film but it flopped simply because the director ignored his audience.