It's the story about an attempted kidnapping of a U.S. President (Hurt) by an unspecified terrorist group and the attempts that a secret service agent (Quaid) makes to stop them.
The film replays that same 30 minutes from a variety of points of view, starting with the news network (Sigourney Weaver plays the News Editor) and ending with a second run through with Quaid (via, in one instance, the tourist Forrest Whitaker). Each time the 30 minutes runs through, we learn another facet of the case.
It's not a bad film, but given the quality of the actors, I thought they'd 'knock it out of the park.' When they didn't I felt a little disappointed.