"Vantage Point"

This movie is too short to mess around with waiting for 
characters names to actually be said, so let’s just do a run 
down right now... Dennis Quaid = Thomas Barnes; Matthew Fox = 
Kent Taylor; Forest Whitaker = Howard Lewis; Sigourney Weaver = 
“Rex” (No, it isn’t totally obvious this part was written for a 
man); William Hurt = President Ashton; Eduardo Noriega = 
Enrique; Ayelet Zurer = Veronica; Edgar Ramirez = Javier; Saïd 
Taghmaoui = Suarez; Holt “Caleigh’s boyfriend from CSI: Miami 
who blew his brains out” McCallany = Secret Service Redshirt; 
Richard “the other big bald tough guy” T. Jones = Token Black 
Secret Service Agent

Or, as the preview put it...Golden Globe nominee Dennis Quaid, 
Golden Globe winner and Oscar nominee Sigourney Weaver, Oscar 
winner Forest Whitaker, and...um...that guy from "Lost". Okay, I 
might be paraphrasing a little.


Bon. On commence avec plusieurs de...shit, wrong language. Let 
me just change that...”Bom dia, É meio-dia em Salamanca, 
Espanha”...damnit. Apparently they’re trying to make up for the 
fact that this movie is *really* short by adding dozens of 
audio tracks and subtitles (I don’t think I have ever seen 
such a long subtitle menu in my life). I love it. Note to the 
person casting the French voiceovers: Dennis Quaid is not 
actually 73. Note to the person casting the Spanish 
voiceovers: neither is Matthew Fox.

Okay. Let’s try this again.

Hi. We begin with a bunch of slightly different overlaid shots 
of various parts of a street in Mexico City, which will be 
playing the part of Generic Spanish Town for this movie, so the 
viewers who maybe didn’t see the five million ads and previews 
for this movie know they will be seeing the story from several 
perspectives. Limo procession. Protesters waving signs with 
pictures of the president and the letters USA in a big “no” 
symbol. Barnes and Taylor wander around somewhere in the 
background, looking important and there’s something about a 
National Security Source Report. I don’t know, I’m just writing 
what I see.

Pan in on “Salamanca, Spain” while a reporter voiceovers that 
it is 12 noon and pretty soon over a hundred world leaders will 
be meeting here in Plaza Mayor to discuss a “bold new 
counterterrorist strategy”. So of course, the next sentence out 
of his mouth has “9-11” in it. Blah blah global terror blah 
lives lost yadda yadda possibly on the brink of agreement 
between Western and Arab leaders. Sure. And we go to the inside 
of the news van where “Rex” is cuing a cut to the network’s 
token pretty black reporter “Angie Jones”, who basically 
blathers on about the same things the last guy was saying but 
in a breathy voice. The guy at the newstation back home asks 
what the “mood” is like. Angie says “hopeful” for the most 
part, but she spoke to some delegates who had some things to 
say about US foreign policy and... “Rex” shuts her down 
immediately and asks what the hell she thinks she’s doing. “Not 
everyone loves us,” she says. Rex tells her to save the 
“punditry” for someone who’s “paid to have an opinion”. 
Because, you know, the news is so good at being impartial. 
“Hey, I’m cool with censorship,” Angie smiles. “I know the 
American people love that.” Heh. I love her. Rex tells her to 
lighten up and then fields a call from the station manager, 
screaming that she should keep her damned reporters in line and 
tell them to stick to the damned script. Then she bitches about 
the “clown” operating camera two, who has not budged from the 
protesters in the last ten minutes or something. She tells him 
to stick to the summit, not the sideshow. He says si and she 
mutters about this being like training dogs. Is the microphone 
still on? 

Outside, the President’s motorcade arrives and he is 
immediately surrounded by secret service guys, including 
Barnes, McCallany and some guy who greets the president with a 
big smile. Oh my god, it’s Matthew Fox. I didn’t recognize him 
without the intense/angsty glare. Sorry. Rex plays ringleader 
and her eyes bug out when the camera gets a good close up of 
Barnes. She recognizes him and bitches that they didn’t know he 
was going to be there and they should have *known* damnit! She 
orders “Kevin” to pull the archival footage. Then she reminds 
Angie that they’re here for the summit, “not the sideshow”, 
which is already getting to be a tired phrase. Angie says there 
are other stories going on here and...Rex doesn’t give a shit 
unless the protesters start setting themselves on fire.

Kevin gets the archival footage Rex requested up. It’s of 
Barnes taking a bullet for the president. She is forced to 
exposit that this happened last year and she can’t believe he’s 
back on duty already. Kevin says if they already have this... 
“No, he won’t talk,” Rex says. “A year ago we had Hill, we had 
that guy who saved Reagan...a total hero piece. Barnes wanted 
nothing to do with it.” She says it would have made a great 
side story but they don’t have time to work it in. Sure. Let’s 
ignore the big ass crowd of protesters and focus on the guy 
who’s just doing what he was hired to do. Welcome to American 
Media 101. She refocuses the minions on the summit and goes 
back to ringleading. Close in on the screen where the mayor is 
introducing the president, which then changes to a different 
angle, then a different angle, then the crowds waving flags, 
then back to the mayor. This is doing nothing for my ADD. Rex 
turns to Angie and tells her she needs a wrap up and “keep it 
simple”. “You mean dumb it down,” Angie snots. Well, you *are* 
broadcasting to the general American population, so...yes. 

The president takes the podium and the announcer says something 
about the “defining moment in his presidency” and...BANG! The 
president appears to take two bullets and go down. Everyone in 
the newsroom stares in slack-jawed shock. On the cameras, all 
hell breaks loose. A half a dozen secret service descend on the 
president, some Spanish-looking guy runs onto the podium and 
gets tackled by Barnes. Rex frantically tries to direct camera 
operators. The president is shoved into an ambulance and a bomb 
goes off somewhere in the distance. Rex tries to get one of the 
cameras to figure out what that was about. 

Angie is looking shell-shocked, crying inconsolably. Oh, honey, 
you’re in the wrong line of work. Rex barks at her to get ready 
for them to cut to her because they’re live now. Angie sobs 
that she needs a minute. Rex tells the news anchor to stall for 
a while and talks her down. When they cut to her, she announces 
that the president has been shot, there’s been “several” shots 
fired and a bomb seems to have gone off somewhere outside the 
plaza. Also...BOOM! And the entire podium blows, shaking the 
ground all the way out to the news van. Smoke and debris goes 
everywhere. The crew looks dumbfounded. The cameras that aren’t 
static show what looks like a war zone. Rex tells the anchor 
he’s going to have to take over again and looks like she might 
throw up. She calls for Angie, who is laying on the ground 
covered in blood and not moving. Everyone looks devastated and 
one of the minions cryingly orders Kevin to turn off the camera 
on Angie. Rex stoically turns it off herself and sits back 
down. 

And the screen goes to white and then we rewind quickly through 
the events of the last nine minutes and get a card that says 
“23 minutes earlier”. The time stamp is reset to noon and the 
bells in the distance go off. The announcer’s voice starts all 
over again but this time we’re in Barnes’ hotel room where he 
is shirtless and staring out the window listlessly. Taylor 
sticks his head in to announce that it’s time to go. Barnes 
puts his shirt on and sits on the rumpled bed, having 
flashbacks of taking a bullet for the president and fiddling 
with a pill bottle with shaking hands. Oh, goodie. That cliché. 
He decides not to self medicate and grabs his gun instead.

He heads down to the parking garage to catch the tail end of a 
conversation between Taylor, SSR and TBSSA about whether or not 
he’s ready to go back to work. Taylor is defending him, 
insisting his nervous breakdown was “six months ago” and he’s 
over it and give him a break already. TBSSA wonders what the 
odds are Barnes will freak out immediately. “I’d put it at 
fifty-fifty,” Barnes deadpans, brushing past them toward the 
car. Taylor smirks and follows him. The other two follow 
reluctantly and the president comes out into the garage a 
second later and gets in the limo, followed by Barnes and 
Taylor.

As the procession takes off down the street past an entire army 
of armed guards lining the street we hear “control” over the 
com link in the agents’ ears say that “Eagle” is on the move. 
Remember that. It’ll probably be important later. Inside the 
limo, Barnes thanks Taylor for getting him back out in the 
field. Taylor just smiles and says “don’t thank me yet.” I 
debate whether it’s worth creating slashy subtext for any 
future scenes between these two.

They arrive and climb out of the limo and Barnes looks 
instantly overwhelmed by the hoard of protesters and reporters 
and photographers everywhere. He recovers quickly and joins the 
other three apparently lead secret service agents, forming a 
box around the president and moving toward the Roman arena. I 
mean plaza. Once they enter, the president plasters on this 
totally doofy smile and breaks away from the agents to say hi 
to a cute little baby in the crowd. The agents are 
understandably not thrilled by this. Then some shady looking 
guy reaches into his jacket pocket and Barnes freaks out, 
grabbing his arm and forcing him to drop the camera he was 
fishing out. TBSSA goes to do who knows what but Taylor stops 
him. Everybody regroups and marches toward the podium while 
Taylor talks into his sleeve in the totally unsubtle way all 
government agents do in the movies. All teams assure him that
it’s clear. 

The president takes his place behind the mayor and Taylor and 
Barnes take their places a couple yards away. The other two 
guys disappear until the plot calls for them again. Barnes 
scans the arena and we see from his point of view: some snipers 
on the roof, random tourists, Forest Whitaker (Lewis) with a 
camcorder and a window across the way with a pretty lacey 
curtain flapping rhythmically. He squints at this last one 
worriedly. Taylor glances at him, follows his line of sight and 
practically shrugs and goes back to watching the crowd. Barnes 
goes to say something into his sleeve and hesitates. Then he 
does it again. And again. This is going to be a long movie if 
he doesn’t get over this fear of false alarms. Finally he asks 
for confirmation that the building is clear, which he gets, and 
tells whoever is on the other end that there’s a “flutter” on 
the second floor, seventh window from the left. They agree to 
check it out and Taylor flashes him this look that could mean 
any number of things from “hey, don’t look at me, I didn’t do 
it” to “I think there’s something wrong with my earwig. Wanna 
meet me out back later and take a look at it?” Okay, so I’m 
reaching. Bite me. 

Barnes goes back to staring at the crowd and finds Lewis turned 
in the wrong direction now, pointing the camera toward the 
window Barnes was just looking at and looking worried. Some 
agent arrives at the window and assures Barnes that it’s just a 
fan that’s been left on. How convenient. Taylor looks at Barnes 
like “don’t freak out on me here, man.” 

The president takes the podium and, from Barnes’ point of view 
we see a flash from one of the upper windows of the building 
across the way, accompanied by the sound of gunshots and the 
president hitting the ground. Taylor and a few other agents 
swoop into action. Barnes just stares at the window the shot 
came from, all sound becoming muffled, including Taylor’s voice 
screaming his name pissily (thank you, Microsoft, for auto-
correcting that to “prissily”. Lovely mental image you just 
gave me there). Somebody yells that Eagle is down and then that 
Spanish guy (Enrique) runs up onto the stage and Barnes snaps 
to, running to tackle him. The sound comes back. SSR and TBSSA 
take Enrique away and Taylor barks all sorts of orders in 
whatever is left of his voice after about sixty takes. Barnes 
stands by helplessly and watches as Taylor and several other 
guys carry the president off the podium. “Find that shooter,” 
Taylor snaps at him on his way out. ‘Chloe,’ Barnes barks into 
his sleeve. ‘I mean, control. Set up a perimeter. Sweep the 
buildings. Nobody goes in or out.’ He watches Taylor help load 
“Eagle” into an ambulance. Somebody yells for “Veronica”. Then 
Barnes asks for a “20 on POTUS”. And there it is. Anybody who 
has ever seen anything coming out of Hollywood that has to do 
with the president should now realize that that was not the 
real president. Even if they didn’t see the preview that 
totally laid that plot twist out on a silver platter.

Unfortunately, control either doesn’t have a status report on 
the real one or doesn’t care to answer Barnes at the moment. 
Barnes gives up on it for the moment and runs over to SSR and 
TBSSA, who are trying to restrain Enrique, who is ranting that 
they are all in danger and they have to get out of here. Barnes 
grabs him by the shirt and demands to know why he ran for the 
president. Enrique says he heard a shot and it’s his job to 
protect the mayor. TBSSA elaborates that Enrique is a cop. 
Barnes doesn’t care because he *knows* something, damnit! TBSSA 
shoves Enrique out of frame with orders to “get him out of 
here”. Barnes snaps at whoever is escorting Enrique out to not 
release him. From off screen Enrique shouts that he’s being set 
up. Barnes runs back toward Taylor and says he’s not getting a 
response from control. Taylor says he just spoke to them and 
they said POTUS was secure. What? When? Who? Barnes doesn’t 
have time to ask how the hell Taylor was able to contact 
control when he couldn’t because the bomb in the distance goes 
off right at that moment. Taylor redirects Barnes to the 
current crisis, saying they have to shut the city down until 
they find the shooter. Barnes moans that this should never have 
happened. Clunk. Taylor says yeah, well, it did. Clunk. On 
their watch. Clunk clunk. Barnes says he can’t live with 
that so they have to find the son of a bitch. Yeesh. 

He spots Lewis standing in the middle of the chaos, talking to 
somebody on a cell phone. Yeah, now’s not a good time, buddy. 
Barnes runs over and rips the camera from his hands with a 
brusque “sir, we need your camera.” “Sure,” Lewis says politely 
like he wasn’t nearly tackled to the ground and frisked. Taylor 
trails after Barnes and watches them fiddle with the zoom on 
the instant replay. Barnes points out the window the flutter 
came from earlier and says the shot came from a window up and 
to the left of that. Taylor says wait, he saw the shooter? 
Barnes falters a little and says er, no, but he saw a flash. 
Taylor looks less than impressed but Lewis pipes up that he saw 
a man in that room. Taylor says he’ll check it out and starts 
to run off. Barnes protests that he’s coming with because... 
y’know... it could get dangerous...or something. Taylor says 
no, “if you’re wrong, let me take the heat.” Then he turns and 
disappears into the crowd, weaving through a mass of 
frantically running civilians. “Thanks, honey, I owe you one,” 
Barnes says in my head. 

Barnes hovers over the camera again as Lewis babbles that he 
thinks he got the shooter on video. Then the director totally 
cheats by not showing us what Barnes sees on the screen to make 
his eyes widen in horror. “Oh, my god,” he mutters. Then he 
turns and runs toward the podium screaming “there’s a bomb 
under the podium!” And BOOM! He flies backward and everything 
goes grey. He comes to some unidentified time later, lying on 
the ground amid rubble, dirty but only slightly scratched. The 
sound is muffled again as he looks at the carnage and we hear a 
replay of some of the audio from the last several minutes. Find 
the shooter! Flash of light! Bomb! Find the shooter! Hey, don’t 
look at me, I’m not the one being repetitive. Also, somebody 
yells for “Anna”. He sees SSR lying on the ground wounded, 
coughing gravely and runs over to him, followed closely by 
TBSSA, so we can have the standard “you’re gonna be okay don’t 
you dare die on me!” scene. SSR mercifully dies almost 
immediately. Then TBSSA looks up to see Enrique stumble to his 
feet, holster his gun and run for it. Barnes just watches 
dispassionately as TBSSA gives chase, followed closely by one 
of Rex’s cameramen. Where the hell is that guy going? This 
apparently gives Barnes an idea though, as he then runs in the 
opposite direction out into the news van, flashing a badge at a 
surprised Rex and demanding to see their tapes. 

Rex agrees easily and Barnes orders Kevin to show him any 
footage they have of the back part of the plaza. While they’re 
locating it, he sees the frozen image of himself catching a 
bullet a year ago and glowers. His phone rings. It’s Taylor. He 
says Barnes was right, he’s in pursuit of the shooter, leaving 
the back annex and heading west. Barnes asks if he called it 
in. Taylor says no, he needs Barnes to do it. Barnes does not 
question the oddity of this and just hangs up and tries to 
contact control, which is still not responding. Then he calls 
somebody to say control is down and his partner is in pursuit 
and they need immediate assistance outside the back annex 
heading west. Of course, Rex and her minion are relaying all of 
this to their cameramen. Yeah, brilliant idea saying all of 
this in front of a television news crew. I’m sure they won’t 
get in your way or anything. He calls back Taylor to say backup 
is on it’s way and then stops short, looking at one of the 
monitors. “What,” Taylor’s voice asks. “Barnes, what is it?” 
Barnes ignores him, points to a shot of the back end of an 
ambulance in some alley and tells Kevin to rewind it. Kevin 
does and Barnes’ eyes go wide but again we don’t see what he’s 
looking at. “Oh, my God,” he mutters and runs out the door. 
“What?” Rex asks frantically. “What? What did he see?” You’ll 
just have to wait until the end of the movie to find out along 
with everybody else, lady. White screen. Rewind. And no, you 
don’t see anything on the screen in the rewind either. I 
checked.

Noon. The bells are going off. Enrique is entering the plaza. 
He flashes a police badge at the security officer at the 
entrance and says he works for the mayor. She asks if he’s 
armed. He is briefly distracted by an amorous looking couple 
(Veronica and Javier) inside and says yes. She shuts off the 
metal detector and lets him through. Javier tells Veronica 
he’ll meet her at the underpass and leaves, sharing a death 
glare with Enrique as they pass each other. Enrique does not 
shoot Javier and instead confronts Veronica while romantic 
Spanish music plays in the background. He says she has a glow 
about her. What has she been doing? She says nothing, just 
taking in the crowd. “Some more than others,” he grits. She 
says he saw nothing. He doesn’t buy it. She says she promises 
there is no one else but him for her and she’ll say it any 
damned way he needs her to to make him believe it. Seriously, 
can we lay off the subtext? I know this is a PG-13 movie, but 
it’s getting a bit heavy handed. She promises they’ll go away 
together when “you’ve finished here” and she loves him and oh, 
did he remember to bring her bag? He hands it to her. They 
exchange I love yous and he makes his way behind the podium as 
“President Ashton” arrives. 

We start the mayor’s speech from a general bird’s eye view, 
then close in on Enrique, who is replaying the events of the 
last five minutes in his head. Meet at the underpass! You don’t 
have to worry about him! You are my one and only! Find the 
shooter! Whoops, sorry. The president takes the podium and 
BANG! Enrique startles and runs for the podium, headed in the 
general direction of the mayor and getting all of two feet 
before being mowed down by Barnes and yanked off the stage. 
Lewis wanders over with his camera as SSR and TBSSA try to 
grill Enrique. Enrique doesn’t answer as he’s too busy watching 
Veronica saunter through the crowd, toss the bag he brought her 
under the podium and disappear. He shouts her name a few times 
(see Barnes’ POV) and shouts that they have to go because they 
are all in danger. SSA finds his loaded gun. Lewis, who has 
been frantically trying to follow all of this, steps up to say 
that Enrique’s telling the truth. He saw the girl throw 
something under the podium! SSA finds his badge. TBSSA asks if 
he’s on duty. Enrique says no, he just says he’s working for 
the mayor for the hell of it. He repeats that they’re in danger 
and need to leave. Lewis disappears. Barnes reappears to grill 
Enrique some more. Y’all are just wasting time asking redundant 
questions here. 

And we repeat the exchange from earlier except this time we see 
Enrique take advantage of the first distant explosion to break 
free from the agent escorting him away. He barely gets hold of 
the guy’s gun before the podium blows. And we totally just 
fucked up the timeline. Seriously. Last we saw, Barnes ordered 
the unnamed agent to hold onto Enrique, had a conversation with 
Taylor that was interrupted halfway through by the first 
explosion and then had time to rewind Lewis’ Zapruder film and 
talk some more before the second bomb went off. Now the bombs 
are going off one immediately after the other with no time for 
any of that other crap in between. Nice editing, guys.

Grey smoke. Carnage. Enrique comes to to Barnes screaming for a 
medic. TBSSA spots him (again within seconds. Did I miss the 
part where we went through a time warp?) and he bolts. And this 
time we follow the chase out of the arena into the street, both 
parties darting around fleeing, frantic civilians. TBSSA shoots 
a couple bullets in the air to clear a path, which I’m sure IA 
will love. Enrique runs in front of an ambulance and everything 
goes into slow motion as he sees Veronica in the passenger 
seat. He’s so busy shooting her and the ambulance a “what the 
hell?” look that he’s hit by an oncoming car. Luckily they 
weren’t going very fast and he jumps up and resumes the chase. 
Chase chase. Through buildings. Up and down stairs. Enrique 
seems to lose the agents and crosses a couple busy streets to 
the aforementioned underpass. He pulls out his gun, cocks it 
and waits. We don’t see the vehicle that pulls up, but we hear 
sirens. A door slams and he says “surprised to see me alive?” 
White screen. Rewind. And I’m starting to hate these damned 
cliffhangers.

And now we take a short break from the action to follow Lewis 
the wide-eyed tourist with the camera. He wanders around 
marveling at the architecture and the local kids and the crowd 
of people waiting for the summit to begin. He sees Veronica and 
Javier playing lovebirds and looks sad. A vaguely middle 
eastern looking guy (Suarez) wanders up to him to ask what he’s 
filming. He introduces himself as Sam. Lewis introduces himself 
and they shake hands. Suarez asks if he’s American. Uh-huh. 
“Wow. What brings you here?” Subtext: are you crazy? You know 
the rest of the world hates America right now, right? You 
probably shouldn’t be traveling abroad or you should at least 
pretend to be Canadian. Lewis says he’s “looking for a little 
excitement”. It’s his first time traveling to Europe, if that 
much wasn’t obvious from his dewy-eyed wonder. Suarez says he 
goes “where the moment takes me” whatever that means. Lewis 
concludes he has no family. Suarez says heck no, none that he 
knows of. Lewis reveals that his kids are with their mother and 
the two of them are “going through a bad patch right now”. By 
which he means they’re on the verge of divorce. 

A little girl walking through the crowd bumps into Lewis, 
spilling her ice cream. The mother scolds her and apologizes to 
Lewis, who says nah, it’s fine. Suarez takes this as his cue to 
beat it and makes hasty goodbyes. Lewis squats next to the girl 
and asks her name in Spanish. She says it’s Anna. He says 
apropos of nothing that she looks about the same age as his son 
and asks the mother if he can buy her another ice cream. She 
says no, that’s okay, thanks and herds the protesting girl 
away. Lewis calls after the girl to say he’s sorry, then turns 
back to the podium, turning the camera back on hastily as the 
president arrives. The mayor starts the speech and Lewis pans 
over to Barnes for some odd reason. Barnes is frowning at the 
fluttering curtain. Lewis follows his line of sight and sees 
the fluttering, then sees somebody moving around behind the 
curtain. “I don’t think he’s supposed to be up there,” he 
mutters to himself. “What’s he doing?” He pans back to the 
president a second before the shots are fired. 

In the chaos he flips back to aim the camera at the window, 
which is empty now. Then he pushes his way toward the podium 
and we see all the previous events in snapshots. Barnes tackles 
Enrique. Taylor yells that Eagle is down. Enrique screams that 
they have to leave and is manhandled off the stage. It’s all 
very chaotic. Lewis makes his way over to them, sees movement 
over by the stage and turns the camera on it for a moment. Then 
back on Enrique. Then back on Veronica as Enrique screams for 
her. Then back on Enrique. I’m getting dizzy. Enrique argues 
with the agents that Veronica threw something under the podium. 
Lewis steps in to say he’s telling the truth even though he 
could only have barely seen it. The bomb in the distance goes 
off and the crowd gets even more frantic. Somewhere nearby, 
Anna and her mother are separated in the chaos. Lewis takes 
this all in and takes a moment to call his estranged wife to 
tell her answering machine what just happened before she hears 
it on the news and tell the kids he’s fine and oh, he’s pretty 
sure he saw the guy who did it. He’s tackled before he can hang 
up. It’s Barnes. Did you see the shooter? No, but I saw a man 
in that room. Taylor goes to check – offering to take the heat 
for Barnes. Among other things. Oh, shut up. Did you get 
everything? Yeah, let me just rewind the tape a little... This 
time we see what Barnes saw: a clear shot of Veronica throwing 
the bag under the podium. Don’t ask how Lewis managed to catch 
that. BOOM! And grey.

Lewis comes to amid the carnage and looks around, dazed. He 
picks up his probably broken camera and stumbles to his feet. 
Barnes is shouting for a medic, but Lewis doesn’t notice as 
Anna is wandering around shouting for her mother. He shouts her 
name (see Barnes’ POV) and runs over to her, asking where her 
mother is. If she knew that she wouldn’t be searching for her 
now, would she? A cop on a bullhorn tells everybody to evacuate 
the plaza. Lewis tells her to come with him – he’ll get her 
someplace safe and help her find her mother. He picks her up 
and runs with the crowd out of the arena, pausing to plaster 
Anna against a wall when a couple gunshots go off. He asks if 
she’s okay and watches Enrique go running by, followed by TBSSA 
screaming at people to get out of the way. He runs Anna over to 
the nearest cop and says she needs to watch this girl because 
her mother has disappeared. The cop assures Anna will be safe 
with her and she understands English perfectly so there’s no 
need for Lewis to speak Caveman. He promises Anna he’ll be 
right back but he has to go help the police. No, you don’t. 
Anna sobs. Lewis joins the chase going down the street, 
flipping his camera on. Shouldn’t that thing be dead by now? 
Meanwhile, Anna sees a woman that looks nothing like her mother 
but chases after her anyway, easily getting away from the cop 
who has about fifty other crises to deal with at the moment. 
Nice one, Lewis.

Lewis gets a nice view of Enrique staring at the ambulance and 
getting hit by a car and then trails after the train as they 
start running again. How is this helping the police? I mean, 
really. You may have gotten the shooter on film. Good for you. 
But this is unnecessary. I mean, I know you said you were 
looking for some action, but really. Meddling in police affairs 
is not the way to go about finding it. He takes a shortcut 
through an alley and catches up with Enrique after he loses the 
agents, following him to the busy freeway and taking a bridge 
that gives him a pretty good view of the underpass. He zooms in 
on Enrique and sees the police badge, which was plainly visible 
through the chase. He looks disappointed but then a cop car 
pulls up, sirens wailing and Javier gets out of the passenger 
side to talk to him. Several convenient shadows, trees and sun 
glares hide the driver of the car, obviously intentionally. 

Lewis whips around as the secret service guys arrive on the 
other side of the road and start shooting in the general 
direction of Enrique. He turns back to find Enrique on the 
ground, Javier leaning over him and talking to him. Before he 
can ponder this he hears Anna’s voice calling her mother. She’s 
down on the ground, trying to run out into oncoming traffic. 
Does this girl have no sense of self-preservation? Lewis runs 
down toward her. She runs out into the street, sees an 
ambulance bearing down on her and totally stops, screaming for 
her mother. Kid, get out of the damned ROAD! The screen goes to 
white as Lewis is running to hopefully save her. And rewind. 
Gah.

Noon. Muted bells. And we’re in the limo with the president, 
who is on his cell with somebody talking about his speech and 
whether or not he should just wing it. One of the guys across 
from him – neither of which look anything like either Barnes or 
Taylor – is talking to his sleeve. Ashton trails off as he 
realizes the limo is pulling into a tunnel and the flags are 
being taken off the front end. Another guy I will assume is one 
of the president’s advisors – apparently his name is Ted - gets 
in the limo. Ashton hangs up the phone and Ted says the NSA 
just confirmed a threat. Ashton asks where Phil is. At the 
hotel, talking to the joint chiefs. Ashton groans that he’s 
sending the double, isn’t he? Well, that would be standard 
procedure. They start heading to the hotel, advisor guy 
babbling that they’ll issue a statement “deferring to Prime 
Minister Gutierrez”. Ashton grumbles that today is really not a 
good day for this. Ted assures they’ve used doubles since 
Reagan. Yeah, I’m sure most of Reagan’s second term was 
completed by a double. When it wasn’t being completed by Nancy. 
Ashton grumbles that that was for photo ops, not something this 
big. But there’s nothing he can do about it. So while they head 
for the hotel, the double arrives at the plaza. 

Ashton meets Phil in the parking garage. He says NSA called it 
in five minutes ago. Ashton asks if they thought of pulling out 
of the summit completely. No, why? He sighs and asks if they 
know who’s behind it. Phil says a local group with vague 
connection to the Mujahedin Brigade. Possibly. Or maybe it’s 
some crazed stalker with no connection to terrorists 
whatsoever. We don’t really know. Ashton asks why now. Phil 
blathers something about an intercepted plot to smuggle a dirty 
bomb out of Morocco a couple weeks ago and this might be 
retaliation. Er...pretty elaborate retaliation plan. Ashton 
agrees that this makes no sense. 

They all get in the elevator and Ashton looks through a folder 
of intel that includes a picture of Benwar Suarez, the apparent 
group leader. And yes, that is the same Suarez who was 
innocently chatting with Lewis earlier. Ashton asks what they 
know about him. He’s from Morocco, educated in Paris. He’s also 
single and enjoys long walks on the beach. I mean, he went off 
the map and resurfaced in Beirut and Darfur and a couple days 
ago they intercepted an e-mail between members of his group 
that had embedded maps and blueprints. But they didn’t receive 
the threat until this morning. Huh? I admit my knowledge of the 
way things are run in Washington is a bit shaky, but shouldn’t 
they have looked into this sooner? Ashton asks what the joint 
chiefs recommended. Going after the group leader, naturally. 
Cut off the head. Yadda yadda. “Here in Spain,” Ashton asks 
incredulously. Phil fidgets. “Morocco. We have a satellite lock 
on one of their camps there.” And because Ashton has full use 
of the brains God gave a bird he doesn’t think a pre-emptive 
strike on a “friendly Arab nation” is a good idea. “They’re 
harboring terrorists,” Phil flails. Ashton does not say that 
while that may have worked on his predecessor, he is not a 
flaming moron eager to get into a senseless war. Rex: get off 
the damn soapbox and stick to the script! Diandra: (salute) 
yes, ma’am!

Ashton asks if they’re sure about the intel. Yep. “Why not 
focus on the ones who are here actually doing this?” Because we 
haven’t done that in years, if ever so why start now? Actually, 
Phil claims they’re trying but they’re looking for five needles 
in a haystack of 6 million. Ashton tells him to try harder. 
They arrive at the room and Ashton looks out the window toward 
the arena as the double arrives. Somebody turns on the 
television and he sneers at the stupidly grinning double. “He 
doesn’t even look like me.” Phil chuckles because, of course, 
the big in-joke is that both the real president and the double 
are played by William Hurt. It is a testament to his 
characterizing abilities that I honestly believed for a moment 
that the double could have been played by his stand-in. Ashton 
does a double take when he sees Barnes on the podium. “Is that 
Thomas?” Uh, yeah. “I thought he was still inactive.” 
Uh...yeah. “Well, if he’s back, why isn’t he with me?” Ted kind 
of fidgets and splutters that they weren’t sure he was ready. 
Ashton recognizes a line of bull when he sees one. He rolls his 
eyes and points out that they sent him out there where the 
danger supposedly is. Phil BSs that they needed someone to 
“sell” the double. Ashton reminds Phil that Barnes took a 
bullet for him. Phil says yeah, and look how shaky he is now. 
“Look, I liked him every bit as much as you did, but we needed 
to know we could count on him again before we put him on your 
detail.” So you threw him to the wolves, Ashton concludes. 
“That’s how we treat our friends now?” Yes. 

They watch silently as the double takes the stand and... bang! 
Phil calls the joint chiefs immediately. Ashton just numbly 
watches himself being shot on screen and the ensuing chaos, 
particularly Barnes tackling Enrique. Phil gets his attention 
to say the chiefs “have a satellite lock on their village.” 
Ashton looks to Ted, who admits that there’s sort of a problem 
with this in that, as far as the world knows, he’s just been 
shot so he can’t exactly give that kind of order without 
telling the world that they weren’t really there. “We weren’t 
there, Ted,” Ashton says quietly. Phil offers getting the VP to 
do it. Ashton says he’s not going 25th amendment yet. “Tell 
Rick to work up a story I was shot, but I’m okay.” Ted doesn’t 
think that will fly. Maybe not with the rest of the world, but 
the Americans will probably buy it. Ashton says he’ll go to the 
hospital and put on a show if he has to, but he’s not sitting 
this out. An explosion on the ground level shakes the entire 
hotel and the television loses signal. Phil – who should be 
more worried about getting the president the hell out of there 
right now – insists that he has to give the order to attack the 
village NOW! Ashton gets a glimpse of the carnage below before 
a secret service guy shoves him back from the window. 

Phil waves the phone in his face. Ashton pulls it together and 
growls at him to tell them to stand down. Phil splutters that 
they *have* to respond! Ashton calmly argues that bombing a 
camp in Morocco will render the whole damn summit null and that 
is exactly the mistake these people want him to make. Good boy. 
“We have to act strong,” Phil snips. “No, we have to *be* 
strong. They sent us a warning because they want us to react. 
They know our playbook. They’re banking on us doing what we 
always do...We have the world’s sympathy right now. Let’s honor 
that. Let’s finish what we came here to do.” I stand up and 
applaud the screen. Secret service guy announces that 
everything is ready for transport. Phil grinds his teeth and 
barks that they need to get the president to Air Force One 
right. Now. Ashton, on the phone trying to get a hold of his 
wife, says he’s done hiding. “We have to be better than this.” 
Phil ignores him and orders somebody to get AFO ready anyway. 
The first lady gets on the line and Ashton assures her that 
everything’s fine and they’re all safe. This, of course, is the 
cue for the door to the room to blow inward and a masked man to 
come barging in and shoot everybody. He hovers over Ashton 
menacingly and...white screen. Rewind.

Noon. Bong! Bong! We are in a café where little Anna is getting 
her ice cream cone. The same announcer’s voice in the 
background addresses the American people which makes no sense 
whatsoever. Shouldn’t the TV be tuned to a local broadcast 
instead of a satellite feed from across the ocean where nobody 
is even awake to give a rip about what’s going on yet? Mom pays 
for the ice cream and they leave, Anna smiling at Suarez, who 
is sitting at one of the tables, on the way out. Suarez smiles 
back at her and goes back to sipping his coffee and watching 
the inexplicable satellite feed of an American broadcast. No, 
we are not seeing Anna’s POV, we are seeing from the 
perspective of the terrorists in general. Psych.

So now we see what Veronica and Javier were talking about in 
the plaza. He’s demanding to know that his brother is okay. She 
pulls out a camera and plays back some footage of a guy with 
duct tape on his mouth and says this was taken fifteen minutes 
ago. She assures Javier that they are taking good care of him. 
Javier doesn’t buy that crap and demands to know what they’ve 
done to him. She thinks he should just be happy he’s alive and 
in one piece. And he’ll stay that way as long as Javier does 
what he’s supposed to do. She presses something into his hand. 
He grabs her by the back of the head and snarls “you look out 
for yourself”. Their expressions look nothing like they did 
earlier when they looked like a couple in love. He leaves, 
saying he’ll be at the underpass and gives Enrique a death 
glare again as they walk past each other. 

Meanwhile, in the café, Suarez is fiddling with his palm pilot 
and contacting various group members, including Luis the camera 
guy to tell him to stick with the protestors. Luis says he 
can’t because the bitch in the van is lecturing him already – 
and we can, in fact, hear Sigourney’s voice coming from the com 
in his ear. “We’re here for the conference, not the sideshow,” 
he repeats. Yeah, it’s definitely her. He asks if everything is 
going to plan. Suarez smarms that it is. “And the president,” 
Luis presses. “Are you sure they sent a double?” “The beauty of 
American arrogance is that they cannot imagine a world where 
they’re not a step ahead,” Suarez grumbles. No, the beauty of 
American arrogance is that they ignore anyone who says 
otherwise.

Suarez calls the doorman sitting at the desk at the hotel the 
president is headed for to ask if the package has arrived. He 
says yep, it’s arriving now. Suarez says Javier will be by soon 
and “Felipe...you will make us very proud.” Oh, great. Suicide 
bomber. Of Middle Eastern descent. How original and against 
type. 

Okay, let’s pause for a minute and do a head count. We have 
Suarez the ringleader, Veronica the kidnapper, Felipe the 
cliché and Javier the forcibly recruited. According to Phil, 
there are five terrorists in the group so we’re still missing 
one. I’ll pretend I didn’t already know who the fifth guy was 
before I even saw the movie the first time. (No, I didn’t read 
spoilers. I saw the preview one too many times and saw 
something I shouldn’t have). Or that it’s totally obvious since 
we also know they have a mole somewhere working for the 
president and we’ve only met so many people who fit that 
description, many of whom will be shot by Javier in a few 
minutes. Yes, I said Javier. He’s the guy in the mask. They 
just said he was headed for the hotel. This isn’t exactly 
rocket science.

Suarez then calls Javier to ask if he’s in position. He’s 
headed there. Suarez says “for the moment, the Americans think 
they’ve dodged a bullet. Do not be late.” What? When? Huh? Oh, 
and “your brother spoke very highly of your Special Forces 
training. Do not disappoint him.” Which I guess explains why 
they suckered this guy in specifically. Javier tells Suarez to 
just make sure his brother is at the underpass. And therein 
lies the significance. Suarez hangs up and makes another call. 
“How’s our boy doing?” His response appears to be a couple 
bursts of static. On the television screen, Barnes, Taylor and 
the other two redshirts are escorting the double through the 
crowd to the podium. We linger on this image for as yet unknown 
reasons. “Are we go?” Three more bursts of static. Suarez nods 
and disconnects the line. 

Javier has arrived at the hotel and is wanded by security. He 
has nothing but a small cell phone on him. Felipe recognizes 
him and palms him a room key when he opens the door for him. 
Some secret service get fidgety as Javier crosses the lobby so 
he pulls out his phone and says “Hi, honey, I’m just coming up 
to the room.” And because they are dumb as rocks they totally 
buy this and relax. 

Suarez leaves the café and ambles over to the arena. He spots 
Lewis swinging a camera all over the place and realizes he’s 
going to be on the film. So, he yanks the earbud from his ear 
and wanders over to play curious passerby. 

Javier arrives on some floor and uses the keycard to open the 
room where Felipe (or whoever) stashed a whole supply of 
everything a special forces soldier needs to overpower an armed 
guard and take POTUS hostage. 

Suarez half listens to Lewis talk to Anna while keeping an eye 
on the snipers and Enrique unwittingly handing a bomb over to 
Veronica. Then he goes back into the crowd and puts his 
earpiece back in. “Let’s make ourselves a shooter,” he says. 
Click pssshhhtt. He clicks something on his PDA and remotely 
turns on the fan in the room across the plaza. “That should 
keep him occupied.” Click click. Does that mean “copy” or 
something? 

Javier arrives on the right floor and looks surprised to see a 
maid arranging her cart in the hall. He hesitates, then shoots 
her. Suarez comes over his com to ask if he’s ready. Click 
psshhhhtt. Yep. Copy. Can’t talk now. Suarez taps his PDA and 
activates a remote control on a rifle in the window above and 
to the left of the one with the fan, takes aim as the president 
gets to the podium and clicks “fire”. Then he just slips into 
the crowd as all hell breaks loose. Javier hears the screaming 
and Taylor shouting “Eagle’s down! Let’s go, move it!”. He 
bursts into some room with a bank of monitors and starts 
shooting. When everybody’s dead, he calls Suarez to say the 
control room is clear. “Do you have the frequency, Kenneth” 
Suarez asks. Except without the Kenneth part. Javier gives him 
a number, which he punches in. And now they can hear Barnes 
trying to contact control.

Felipe fingers a photo of a pretty woman in Arabic garb, straps 
a bomb under his doorman jacket and walks out into the lobby. 
Suarez and Veronica meet in some garage with an ambulance and 
dress like paramedics. Suarez hands her a gun and says “take 
care of him.” And now we see Javier’s brother is in the 
background, bloody and duct taped to a post. She goes to shoot 
him and hesitates while he squirms and makes muffled pleas. 
Suarez shoots him, startling her. For what joyful purpose did 
he ask her to do it only to do it himself without giving her a 
chance? She barely hesitated for two seconds. Really. 

Javier is running up the stairs of the hotel again.  He pauses 
at a door and checks his watch. Felipe, watching the secret 
service in the lobby trying to contact control and not having 
any more luck than Barnes, gets a message from Suarez repeating 
the “make us proud” line. He walks up to the nearest guy and 
hits the trigger. BOOM! Javier still waits. Suarez and Veronica 
shoot out onto the street, ambulance siren squealing and Suarez 
barks into his com “This is Control We have agents down. I 
repeat, agents down. We have a situation at the front requiring 
immediate backup.” The secret service guys in the hotel do not 
question the accent or sudden voice change and scramble. 
Obviously brains are not a requirement for their job. Javier 
shoots one of them down in the stairwell and watches about a 
half a dozen more run down the stairs like lemmings. He puts on 
his mask, quietly stabs or silencer shoots the remaining guys 
on the floor, blows in the door and we get a repeat of the 
scene we saw from Ashton’s POV except this time we hear Javier 
order him to get up.

Suarez arrives at the first explosion scene, whips out his PDA 
and detonates the bomb under the podium back at the plaza. And 
we see the whole explosion sequence again. Somebody grabs 
Suarez to check on some victim with no pulse, separating him 
from Veronica. While he’s giving the guy CPR and watching 
Veronica get in the elevator we get a repeat of the scene of 
Barnes busting into the news van and demanding to see their 
tapes. Control is down. My partner is in pursuit. Go west. 
Copy. He calls Taylor and this time we see one of the monitors 
over his shoulder, where one of the local police lifts a phone 
to his ear and says “what? Barnes, what is it?” We focus in on 
the guy’s face under the hat to confirm that it is, indeed 
Matthew Fox. Barnes says “oh my god” and we get a white screen 
and flash back to the plaza after the shooting when Barnes was 
checking Lewis’ camera. “I’m coming with you.” “No. If you’re 
wrong. Let me take the heat.” Taylor turns and this time the 
camera is focused on his face as he jogs away and smirks 
evilly. Yep, say hello to terrorist #5. Like I said, I knew 
going into this movie that Matthew’s character would turn out 
to be the bad guy (I caught a similar evil smirk in the 
preview), but after seeing it again, I have to believe I would 
have seen this coming about ten minutes before the reveal. 
Suarez staring at an image of Barnes and Taylor and 
communicating with the unknown fifth person who is obviously 
somebody on the inside, close to the president. Hmm. Let me 
think about that for a minute. 
   Barnes: “I can’t contact control.” 
   Taylor: “I just talked to them. They said ACK!”

Quick and dirty flashback. Taylor follows a couple redshirt 
agents into the building across the way. When the bomb under 
the podium goes off, they all stagger but Taylor recovers 
immediately and shoots both of the redshirts while they’re 
still trying to figure out what the hell just happened. He 
looks out the window at the billowing smoke and calmly pulls a 
machine gun and local police uniform from a closet. A couple 
minutes later he’s running down the stairs and calls Barnes to 
tell him he was right and he’s leaving the back annex headed 
west after the shooter. Then he gets out in the open and gets 
on the phone again to cluelessly say “What? Barnes, what is 
it?” right in front of a camera. Now that we’re all caught up. 

Barnes bursts out of the news van and runs in the general 
direction Taylor just came from. Taylor chucks his phone into 
an ambulance and hops into a police car. I’m not sure if that 
was left there for him or if some cop was dumb enough to leave 
the keys in, but whatever. Barnes is running down a side street 
when Taylor zips by on a cross street. Barnes flags down a 
random car and drags the driver out, yelling that he’s secret 
service. We’re assuming the guy speaks English? Doesn’t matter 
I guess. He throws the car into high speed and calls back 
Washington. He says this is probably going to sound strange 
but, um...cancel that last order. Taylor has gone rogue. 
Control is compromised. Some crazy shit is going on here. “All 
agents are heading west,” the guy on the other end spits like a 
computer. Barnes yells a few goddamnits and chucks his phone 
down.

Javier marches Ashton down to the elevator, where Veronica is 
waiting with some chloroform. Javier barely waits for her to 
strap the oxygen mask to Ashton’s unconscious face before 
pointing the gun at him and ordering Veronica to let his 
brother go. Yeah, about that... She calmly tells him to put the 
gun down. He says make the call or he’ll blow the guy’s head 
off and totally fuck up their plan. What *is* their plan now, 
exactly? I think I’m lost. “Go ahead. Do it,” she bluffs. She 
says he does it and his brother is dead. Could he live with 
knowing his brother died because of him? Don’t fuck it up now. 
That’s just cruel. Javier starts to put the gun down, then 
points it at her and says “nothing had better happen to him”. 
She promises that nothing will. Nope. He isn’t totally already 
rotting away with a bullet in his brain. Nuh-uh. He scoots out 
of the elevator and winces as his hand brushes a wound in his 
side.

Car chase already in progress. Well, not so much a chase since 
Barnes is just driving in circles, frantically searching for 
Taylor. He calls Washington again and says he’s lost Taylor and 
needs a GPS location on his phone.

Back at the hotel, Javier also dresses like a local cop and 
runs out onto the street, checking his watch. Suarez and 
Veronica meet up again in the lobby, now with Ashton on the 
gurney covered in a sheet. They load him into the ambulance and 
Luis runs up to get in with them at the last minute. Inside, 
Veronica breathes a sigh of relief and says they did it. Which 
is usually the cue for everything to start going wrong. Suarez 
recognizes this as he is an intelligent antagonist and says she 
should count her chickens yet. They race past Anna, who is 
wandering away from the cop Lewis left her with and onto the 
street. Twit. The girl, not the cop.

Barnes is still driving in circles when Washington calls him 
back. “POTUS has been abducted. Present location unknown. No 
signal from Taylor’s phone. It’s imperative we locate and 
apprehend Taylor.” Oh really? Barnes graciously does not say NO 
SHIT SHERLOCK! WHAT DO YOU THINK I’M TRYING TO DO? Instead he 
hangs up, mutters “son of a bitch” and starts darting around 
traffic up and down narrow streets again.

In the ambulance, Ashton is waking up. Suarez takes a wild turn 
and he falls off the gurney. Suarez tells Luis to leave him 
there. Elsewhere, Taylor picks up his walkie and contacts 
Suarez. “They bought it,” he cackles. Suarez asks about Barnes. 
Taylor says he “took the bait” and is currently “pissing in the 
wind.” Suarez exposits that Barnes has “created a manhunt for a 
shooter that doesn’t exist.” He asks if Taylor has Javier 
because they might still need him. Taylor says he’s on his way. 
Did I mention that he’s grinning maniacally through pretty much 
this whole scene? Yeah. It’s pretty clear that Matthew is 
enjoying the hell out of playing the bad guy. 

Enrique crosses in front of the ambulance and gawks at 
Veronica. Suarez sneers that he’s supposed to be dead. “We need 
to tie up all of the loose ends.” Luis the clueless asks “who’s 
a loose end?” Veronica says “you are” and shoots him. Ashton 
cringes and then quietly removes the IV pole from the gurney, 
clutching it to his chest. 

Javier gets impatient waiting for his ride and starts waving 
his gun at a couple innocent bystanders and demanding they hand 
over their car keys. Before he can take the car, Taylor 
arrives, sirens wailing. Javier smacks the hood and snaps that 
he’s late. Yeah, and hijacking a car was a brilliant plan B. 
Think that one up all by yourself, did you? Barnes is zipping 
by on a cross street while Taylor waits for Javier to get in 
and slams on the brakes, doing a quick three point turn and 
following as they start up again. Neither Taylor nor Javier 
notices him. Javier yelps at Taylor to drive faster and Taylor, 
in Spanish, tells him to calm the fuck down because they pulled 
it off. Barnes calls Washington again to announce that he found 
Taylor. He’s headed south on...wait, east on...fuck it, here’s 
the registration number of the car. Now excuse me, I have to go 
back to swerving crazily around busy traffic on tiny roads and 
try not to hit any pedestrians.

Let’s have a little bilingual exposition thrown haphazardly 
into a chase sequence, shall we? Javier is inspecting his wound 
and noting, in Spanish with a South American accent, that it 
looks bad. Taylor doesn’t care, he’s just glad this “double 
life” is almost over. He says this in Spanish as well, but with 
a North American accent laced with a few Italian inflections. 
While the Spanish speakers are still straining to figure out 
what the hell is going on Javier switches to English to say ‘I 
don’t give a shit about your double agent crap, I just want to 
see my brother. And why does this car smell like a giant 
ashtray? I thought you said you were gonna quit’. 

A car slams into Barnes, spinning his car out of control and 
totally blowing his cover as Taylor sees the chaos in the rear 
view mirror. “Christ, it’s Barnes,” he yelps and floors the 
gas, darting around cars and whipping around a corner. He gets 
on the horn to Suarez to tell him Barnes is on his ass. “Can 
you lose him,” Suarez asks. “I’m workin’ on it,” Taylor snaps. 
Chase chase, people running, cars swerving crazily. “Come on, 
come on,” Javier chants impatiently in English. Taylor tells 
him in Spanish to cool it. That or he asks for the fish of his 
brother Raoul (tm Dave Barry), I’m not really sure. 

Taylor drives up onto a sidewalk, through a small section of a 
park, down a set of stairs and down a one way street going the 
wrong way. Barnes follows and struggles to keep control of the 
car, ending up on the sidewalk and nearly killing a few 
pedestrians. Hey, it’s Europe. It’s not like nobody has seen 
crazy driving before. Taylor turns a sharp corner to avoid a 
fire truck and Barnes follows on the other side of some 
pillars, driving right through a few outdoor café tables and 
clipping a bright orange car on the other end. But he still 
manages to stay right on Taylor’s bumper. Taylor grinds his 
teeth and starts weaving through traffic again. 

“Have you lost him,” Suarez demands. “I’m still workin’ on it,” 
Taylor snaps in a tone that clearly says “you wanna drive this 
thing? Then SHOVE IT!” Suarez says until he looses Barnes he 
needs to stay clear of the rendezvous point. Javier yelps no, 
they’re going to the underpass now, damnit! Taylor says too 
bad, I’m following orders. Javier points his gun at Taylor’s 
head. Yes, that’s brilliant. Threaten to shoot the guy driving. 
Taylor asks if he’s lost his fucking mind. Clearly. Javier says 
he’s picking up his brother. He cocks the gun. “Either you’re 
coming with, or I drive myself. You choose.” Um, this threat 
might work better if you weren’t currently hurtling through 
busy streets at 200 kilometers an hour. Shooting him now will 
just get you both killed in a fiery crash. Moron. Taylor just 
says “shit” and forces a car off the road, crashing into a 
parked car and flipping end over end in Barnes’ path. Barnes 
swerves around it seemingly easily and Taylor gets really 
frustrated. “Get him off my ass,” he snaps at Javier. Javier 
grumbles and reluctantly takes the gun off Taylor and leans out 
the window, shooting back at Barnes. This does nothing but put 
a couple of neat little bullet holes in Barnes’ windshield. 

Taylor makes pissy faces (no, Microsoft, I still don’t mean 
prissy. Or sissy.) and turns a corner, narrowly missing an 
oncoming semi. The semi smashes right into Barnes’ side, 
pushing the car sideways across the intersection and slamming 
into a building. Barnes is knocked unconscious but miraculously 
not killed. Taylor goats. “Happy?” “Just drive,” Javier 
mutters. They’re coming up on the underpass already. Enrique 
crosses in front of the car. Javier is out of the car almost 
before it stops and demanding to know where his brother is. 
Enrique, of course, has no clue what he’s talking about and 
asks where Veronica is. “Veronica said,” Javier begins. Enrique 
reaches for his gun. “I don’t care what she said you both tried 
to kill...” and Javier shoots him. He kicks Enrique’s gun away 
and crouches over him, shoving his own gun in the poor guy’s 
face and demanding to know where his brother is. “What 
brother,” Enrique gasps. Javier doesn’t take the hint so 
Enrique adds that it looks like they’ve both been set up. 
Overhead, Lewis sees Anna run onto the street. Back in the car, 
Taylor is fidgeting impatiently. “Come on, let’s go,” he barks 
out the window. Javier – ever the slow child – is still 
grilling Enrique on the whereabouts of his brother. 

A few blocks away, Barnes shoves the shattered windshield aside 
and crawls from the wreck. The driver of the semi asks what the 
hell that was about. Barnes pulls his gun, growls “back off” 
and goes running for the underpass. Heh. Having a bad day, are 
we?

Taylor is starting to get really pissed off. “Let’s go! Come 
on!” Oh, shut up, Jack. “I won’t ask you again,” Javier says 
for the dozenth time. “Where’s my brother?” Enrique, 
recognizing a useless battle when he sees one, tells him to go 
to hell. Barnes arrives and yells “freeze!” He and Javier start 
shooting at each other. Taylor decides he’s had enough of this 
shit and makes a break for it. Javier runs to catch him, 
clinging to the passenger door and yelping “give me my 
brother!” Taylor finally, mercifully, puts an end to this 
broken record of a side plot. “He’s dead,” he snarls, picking 
up his own gun and shooting Javier. Javier tumbles from the 
car. Barnes ignores him and continues running after the car, 
shooting wildly, jumping over the now dead Enrique. One of the 
bullets manages to pierce the back window and slam into 
Taylor’s shoulder, apparently nicking an artery as blood starts 
gushing and Taylor loses all control of the car, driving it up 
onto the shoulder and right into a cement divider. Everything 
goes still and quiet as we are supposed to wonder if maybe the 
overhang lopped his head off or something. 

Barnes runs over and drags a still-intact-but-covered-in-blood 
Taylor from the car. “You used me,” he growls, slamming Taylor 
against the car and shoving the gun under his chin. “Oh, like 
you didn’t enjoy it,” Taylor says. In my head. “I trusted you, 
you son of a bitch,” Barnes continues while Taylor lolls and 
slumps to the ground dizzily. “Who’s got POTUS?” “You’re too 
late, Tom,” Taylor gasps. “Why the fuck did you do this,” 
Barnes presses. “You can’t stop us,” Taylor says cryptically, 
his voice warbling all over the place with inflections in weird 
places. “You’ll never stop it. This war will never end.” Barnes 
looks dumbstruck and follows Taylor as he flops over onto the 
ground. “Kent...what have you done?...who’s got the president? 
Kent!” Taylor just gasps and dies while Barnes continues to 
shout his name stupidly.

In the ambulance, Ashton decides now is a good time to make a 
move and hits Veronica over the head with the IV pole. Suarez 
whips around and starts yelling useless things at her like 
“stop him!” and “get him under control!” Yeah, she’ll get right 
on that.

And now we see why Anna is trying to cross a busy freeway - to 
get to her mother on the other side. Why her mother is there is 
anyone’s guess. The ambulance with the remaining terrorists is 
speeding in their direction and Lewis is running for Anna. 
Veronica shoots Ashton in the leg over Suarez’s protests that 
she not kill him. Then she looks at the road and shrieks “look 
out!” Everything goes into slow motion. Suarez sees Anna 
standing in the middle of the road. Anna shouts for her mother. 
Her mother shouts for Anna. Lewis shouts for Anna. Barnes looks 
up like “who the hell is this Anna person?” And Suarez, despite 
being the evil mastermind of a plot to kidnap the President of 
the US and kill a bunch of innocent people at a peace summit, 
decides he can’t bear to run down a little girl and jacks the 
wheel to one side. 

Fade to white. And now we get an awesome shot tying all the 
stories together. The camera zooms in on the freeway from 
above, going through the back of the swerving ambulance to 
Anna, shoots over to Lewis running to save her, flies over all 
the bodies scattered over the road and ends on Barnes, who 
finally lets go of Taylor and stands up to see what’s going on 
over on the other road. The ambulance tips on its side and 
keeps sliding toward Anna. Cars dart everywhere to get out of 
its way. Anna still stands there like a particularly stupid 
deer. Lewis darts in at the last second, sweeps her into his 
arms and dives onto the grass on the other side of the road, 
narrowly avoiding a six-car pile-up. 

Anna’s mother retrieves her from Lewis and sobs gratefully. 
Barnes comes running over and looks in the front of the 
ambulance to find Veronica’s dead body surrounded by broken 
glass. He goes around to the back and opens the door to find 
what looks like two more dead bodies and the President lying 
face down, head turned away. He is, of course, dead too. Just 
kidding. Barnes calls to him and he stirs, groggily calling 
back “Barnes? Is that you?” Barnes throws open the door and 
just then Suarez stirs and reaches for his gun. Apparently, he 
couldn’t just die by ironic accident. The main protagonist 
*had* to shoot him, which Barnes does. Ashton gapes in shock. 
“I’ve got you,” Barnes assures the president cheesily before 
helping him sit up and asking if he’s injured. Ashton says he 
is, but it’s not important. Barnes half-listens, already on the 
phone to Washington. He pauses a moment to note that his hand – 
which was shaking at the beginning of his POV – is perfectly 
steady now. Note to director: this is not as original a plot 
device as you’d like to believe. He tells Washington that he 
has POTUS and they need a pickup seven blocks east of the 
plaza. All that chasing and they only got seven blocks? Without 
running into any of the other characters who were on foot? 

Anna’s mom tearfully thanks Lewis. He says it was nothing and 
waves to Anna as mom staggers away, looking a bit shocked 
himself. His phone rings. It’s the estranged wife, frantically 
asking if he’s okay because they just saw the news and got his 
message and they were worried... He sort of laughs and says 
he’s fine. Just a little traumatized. She puts his son on the 
phone and Lewis assures him he’s fine and he shouldn’t worry. 
“Will you be coming back,” a small voice asks.  He looks at the 
chaos in front of him and says yeah, tell mom he’s coming home 
and he loves them. That’s nice, but I think the police and the 
secret service might have a few questions for you first. 
Starting with “why the hell have you been following our men?”

Barnes helps load Ashton into a chopper. Ashton thanks him. 
Barnes looks heroic as he says “you’re welcome, sir.” We pan up 
from the chaotic wreck on the road, past a couple signs that 
are obviously Mexican and not Spanish (unless Spain decided to 
chuck the metric system) to the helicopter pulling away. 
“Reports out of Salamanca now suggest,” the news anchor from 
the beginning of the movie voice overs. “That the president is 
out of intensive care. His condition is listed as stable. 
President Ashton has made a point of reassuring Americans that 
he’s all right and the summit will continue in the days to 
come. Meanwhile, word from Spanish and United States 
authorities is that they’ve shot and killed the lone assassin 
responsible for today’s attack.” Blink. Okay, first of all, the 
scroll under him says the lone assassin was *arrested*, not 
killed, but that would make even less sense. Which of the five, 
exactly, are we blaming the whole mess on? And how are we 
explaining away the other four bodies? 
   Rex: Collateral damage resulting from a shootout 
    between the assassin and secret service. 
   Diandra: And one of the secret service agents just 
    happened to be wearing a local police uniform? And was 
    shot by a bullet from a secret service gun?
   Rex: I have no idea what you’re talking about. Let’s go 
    to commercial!
Grumble.Whatever. 

I guess this is a movie that doesn't hold up well to repeated 
viewings. I have now watched it about three times in full and 
it seems to make a little *less* sense each time. I mean, okay, 
so the whole plan was to get the US to bomb some village in the 
middle east to the stone age to expose the whole "shoot first 
and ask questions later" dumb cowboys policy to the world at a 
time when it would be most hypocritical (during a peace 
conference, I guess), but...why kidnap the real president? I 
mean, they obviously knew they were assassinating a fake. They 
didn't change the plans on the fly or anything. What did they 
need him for? Insurance? If the president doesn't respond, 
maybe we can hold him hostage until the VP does? What? Huh? 
Who's on first? And what war will never end? The war on terror? 
Well no shit. I didn't need a 90 minute excercise in 
perspectives to tell me that.

If you'll excuse me, I think I need a nap. Or I need to start 
drinking until this whole thing starts making sense and/or I stop 
muttering about politics and the American news media. One of 
the two.

~Diandra