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Language : English
Directed : Tony Scott
Writing credits (WGA) : Bill
Marsilli (written by)
Cast : Denzel Washington , Julia
Adams
Review
 There
is over-obsession within the script of
how a time machine actually works in the
first segments of "Déjà Vu" as if we’ve
never seen a movie before about time
travel. It is explained to us in a
pseudo-science way that is complete
nonsense. Yet ultimately the movie
becomes less preoccupied with time
travel and becomes more of a mean and
lean action thriller. But the thrills
feel warmed over from past thrillers
we’ve seen as this is nothing more than
your typical action thriller.
Director Tony Scott’s latest noisemaker
features all of his usual visual tricks:
flash pans, quick out of focus shots,
sweltering yellow filter-lighting to
emphasize “heat.” Scott uses bombastic
music tropes to remind us that we’re
always watching a thriller, and visually
smashes things up as unnecessarily often
as he can. Simple dialogue scenes are
filmed like action scenes, too, with
their busy camerawork. Bruce Greenwood
and Val Kilmer have supporting parts as
hotheaded cops with separate agendas.
 The
concept of the movie involves Jim
Caviezel as mad bomber that blows up a
New Orleans ferry that ends in a large
number of casualties – a boatload made
up mostly U.S. sailors and happy
children. If Washington is able to go
back in time, he will be able to prevent
the bombing as well as save the girl
(Paula Patton) that not only was a boat
victim but possibly the “key” to
everything. Washington will go back in
time, investigate via clues that have
been patterned for him to follow, to
prevent the incident.
Government whiz geniuses, headed by Adam
Goldberg, can exploit satellite
surveillance from four days ago and
watch through a constant running feed to
track the developments of crimes. In
what seems like a terrific cinematic
concept, the technology is invented to
send a hero policeman through a
time-continuum wormhole back in time
before a crime began so it can be
prevented. Carlin is the kind of
risk-taking cop willing enough to
attempt such bravery.
 In
attempts to add tension, bad guy
Caviezel is a complete wacko who thinks
his deeds are righteous acts of God. His
performance is laughable, an
embarrassment. He definitely sheds his
images of Jesus from "The Passion of the
Christ" but not an honorable way. He
never at anytime seems like a bad guy
smart enough that a good cop on an
average day couldn’t stop, yet he keeps
evading the authorities at key moments.
In the climax, Washington not only
fights his nemesis head to head, but he
has to fight off dumb cops that mistake
him as the bad guy. It’s a movie where
Washington is the only scrupulous cop
while all the other cops are dummies.
If the movie had an ounce of wit, it
could have diagrammed several paradoxes
of time travel that would exploit the
idea that you can’t prevent the past.
But in a Jerry Bruckheimer universe, the
good guys always get the job done right.
And like many Jerry Bruckheimer films,
there is one awesome car chase in the
movie that you might have heard of: a
car chase that has Washington chasing
Caviezel simultaneously in the present
while tracking him in the past by using
a “time-window” viewfinder. This is a
sequence of deft timing and editing.
The movie is unwavering in its
simple-mindedness and it’s often yucky
imagery. The film is mostly noted for
having been the first feature to have
been shot in New Orleans following the
Hurricane Katrina disaster. It brought
much needed income to a city in dire
need. Other than that, the movie as
entertainment is nearly unnecessary.
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