Year of Release: 2006Country of Origin: USA, UK
Director: Tony Scott
Cast: Denzel Washington, Paula Patton, Val Kilmer, James Caviezel
Plot outline: An FBI agent has the ability to travel back in time and falls in love with a woman as her murder approaches (IMDb).
As if suffering the worst natural disaster in a century weren't bad enough for New Orleans, now there's this: A ferry full of Navy sailors and their family and friends, celebrating Mardi Gras, is blown up by a terrorist on Fat Tuesday. Even more disheartening: If the FBI really does have a way-back machine, which allows its agents to interact with events that happened exactly 4 1/2 days ago, then why didn't the feds employ it shortly after Katrina devastated the Big Easy? Couldn't they have asked ATF Agent Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington) to travel back in time and use his strength and charms to persuade Mayor Ray Nagin, state and federal officials to get the city's residents out of harm's way, pronto? Those are some of the questions prompted by Tony Scott's nonsensical if mildly entertaining time-travel flick Deja Vu. The plot isn't the only been-here-before aspect: The Jerry Bruckheimer-produced movie cribs some of its farfetched ideas from Primer, which was far more intriguing in its explanations about wormhole jumping, and Minority Report, with its theories of pre-crime intervention. The results are hardly fresh. Deja Vu concludes with an absurd happy ending that seems to break the kooky rules established by the movie's universe. Deja Vu was the first major Hollywood production shot in New Orleans after Katrina, and footage of real-life devastation in the Ninth Ward figures into the movie, along with brief shots of the St. Charles streetcar and glimpses of the Garden District and the French Quarter. Too bad the filmmaker didn't give the beleaguered city something to brag about. (PB)
My judgement: **1/2 out of 4 stars
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