Washington earns all that money he's paid. He's so into his role that he almost has us believing. Almost.
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The tagline on this police thriller from explosionmeister Jerry Bruckheimer asks, "What if you could change the past?" Ummm, I don't know. Let's ask Marty McFly, who faced a similar challenge in "Back to the Future," or Professor Pearce from the remake of H.G. Wells "The Time Machine," who went back in time to try to save his fiancée from disaster. Or let's ask those two dudes from television who entered "The Time Tunnel" before the machine was perfected and wished they could change the course of history.
The point is, as the title invites, we have seen this sort of movie before. What we haven't seen is the application of the familiar sci-fi fantasy trope to an essentially serious-minded contemporary drama. And that's the reason, really, why "Déjà vu" doesn't work as well as its time-travel predecessors. Placed in a wholly realistic context, it's simply too far-fetched. Denzel Washington is so likable and such a convincing actor that he almost single-handedly has you buying into this hokum penned by Bill Marsilii and Terry Rossio, but a few of the twists that come out of the wormhole in time are just a bit too much to take.
It would be easy to be hard on this film, but the fact is that it's no more difficult to swallow than your average action film. You know going into such films that logic will be the first casualty in a series of explosions, gunfire exchanges, and martial arts battles. Here, you hold out some hope for logic. You want to understand how this Big Brother technology of the future works, and so it's not until midway into the film when you finally have to simply watch it as you would an action flick: Don't question anything and don't expect anything to make sense. Treat it like an improv session. If someone hands you a grapefruit and says it's a baby, then play along. Tickle it under the chin and say "Gitchy koo!"
But there's one other thing you have to get past before you can just sit back and enjoy the movie. You've got to fight the feeling of resentment that the filmmakers are exploiting two things, big-time: the outburst of emotion for Katrina victims, and the patriotic fervor and terrorism paranoia that's become a part of our post-9//11 world. That's because the basic premise has a terrorist blowing up a Mardi Gras ferry that's filled with sailors on leave and school children on a field trip (what, no puppies?). And there are no survivors.
I will say this, though. As easy as it is to joke about Bruckheimer's penchant for big bangs, the opening scene is awfully dramatic and real-looking because it was a real stunt, we find out in some of the bonus features. And it's a spectacular scene. Absolutely spectacular.
After the explosion, local police and disaster teams are doing their thing when ATF agent Doug Carlin (Washington) enters the picture and is already so far along in his investigation that you can see the locals' heads spinning as he tries to bring them up to speed. He's already made a trip to the morgue where, in a gruesome scene, he licks the fingers of a dead woman named Claire (Paula Patton) and touches her other places in order to deduce things that even the coroner isn't catching. In other words, he's got skills that place him right up there with the kind of Western hero that rides into town just in time to save everyone. And the uber-agents who recruit him to help them utilize a new secret technology know he's just the kind of hot-shot they need. It turns out that there's this satellite program dubbed "Snow White" that captures images using advanced technology that can penetrate walls and zoom in anywhere in a particular section of New Orleans. Why they were testing it on New Orleans isn't exactly clear, nor do we understand precisely why the videotape of the footage they're watching is always four days and six hours ago. That's the time-frame they're working with, as they zoom in to get not a virtual tour, but an actual one. These guys can even get into Claire's apartment and watch her in the shower.
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[release]20764[/release]