Denzel Washington re-teams with his Crimson Tide director Tony
Scott for this thriller with SF overtones. Washington plays Doug Carlin, an
agent with the ATF (Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms). When a ferry boat explodes in
New Orleans, Doug and his agency are called out in full force. The ferry was
packed with people, over 500 souls--many of them Navy sailors on leave--lost
their lives in the explosion. It doesn’t take long for Doug to determine that
the explosion was a deliberate act of terrorism. In the midst of this very busy
investigation, Carlin gets a call from a local sheriff, who found the body of a
young woman that washed up on shore. She’s badly burned, and the fingers of one
hand appears to have been blown off. At first Carlin figures her to be one of
the victims of the ferry boat who washed up on shore, but the catch is that her
body was discovered one hour before the ferry boat explosion.
When Carlin examines her body at the Medical Examiner’s office, he realizes that
the woman, whose name was Claire, had been bound and gagged with duct tape. She
had obviously ran into whomever planned the ferry boat explosion, and was killed.
The bomber then tried to cover his tracks by trying to make it appear that she
was just another victim of the blast. The more Carlin investigates Claire’s life
and death, the closer he gets to her, yet there’s nothing he can do for the
woman…or is there? When FBI agent Paul Pryzwarra (Val Kilmer) shows up with an
offer to join a special team of investigators, who can see directly into the
past, Carlin winds up going on the ride of his life.
Déjà vu is basically CSI meets the Time Machine (or, better yet, The Peeping Toms From the Future), and as directed by Scott, it
offers an interesting twist on the time travel tale, with Carlin and his
comrades only able to view the past four days ago via a special machine in order
to find out who committed the bombing. Since she was killed by the bomber, their
best bet is to follow Claire’s life right up until she meets with the bomber.
Washington is very good as Carlin, as is Kilmer, but it’s Jim Caviezel (The
Passion Of The Christ) who gives an outstandingly creepy performance as the crazed bomber.
While Déjà vu manages to present its story in an intelligent and enthralling
manner for the better part of its running time, sadly, it falls apart once it
shifts into "action-movie" mode. An example of this is the despicable scene
where Carlin is tracking the movements of the bomber in the past by driving
around wildly on the highways of the Big Easy. Driving a Hummer, he carelessly
rams into other drivers, causing a great deal of mayhem and losing whatever
sympathy his character had built up to that point. The ending of the film also
slips into this dumb "action-movie" mode when story logic flies out the window
in an effort to create a major confrontation between the characters. Still,
these points aside, Déjà vu is harmless action/SF movie fluff that’s
well-directed by a master of the genre.
--SF
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