Directed by:
Tony ScottCinematography:
Paul CameronComposer:
Harry Gregson-WilliamsCast:
Denzel Washington, Paula Patton, Val Kilmer, James Caviezel, Adam Goldberg, Elden Henson, Erika Alexander, Bruce Greenwood, Rich Hutchman, Matt Craven (more)Plots(1)
Called in to recover evidence in the aftermath of a horrific explosion on a New Orleans ferry, Federal agent Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington) gets pulled away from the scene and taken to a top-secret government lab that uses a time-shifting surveillance device to help prevent crime. (Buena Vista Pictures US)
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Reviews (13)
Despite the unpleasantly fairy-tale ending, the pros prevail. The ultra-sympathetic Denzel Washington, who thinks like all the CSI members put together, the delicious James Caviezel, the likeable and funny scientists... And above all, the unmistakable bombastic direction of Tony Scott. The scene in which a man driving in a car watches a car driving on the same road that he drove on four days earlier is top-notch. Not to mention the introduction. I'm rounding up three and a half for all the entertainment.
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The first two thirds of this picture are outstanding in all respects, but the nearer it draws toward the ending, the more Déjà Vu suffers from its miserable screenplay which tries to convince you that there is more to it than you think. The subject matter isn’t bad, has considerable potential, even working excellently for quite a while, but the ending trips the whole thing up. Even so, the initial idea could be the makings of a pretty good story perhaps for a series like CSI. What makes it even more of a shame is that otherwise this Tony Scott / Denzel Washington duo collaboration worked out well... Well, almost. This time Scott seems to have taken sedatives and although the directing doubtlessly does have his characteristic idiosyncrasies, compared to his recent movies, you can watch this without risking an epileptic fit. This walks in the footsteps of techno-thrillers such as Enemy of the State, but this has a taste of sci-fi in it and almost zero humor. It’s certainly worth watching, but it might be worth leaving the movie theater when the “operation is called off as successfully solved". That way Déjà Vu could aspire to achieving much higher quality levels and you wouldn’t be left with the feeling that somebody missed a big chance.
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I was beginning to worry that Tony would never shoot anything in “ordinary" style, but in Déja Vu we are back on the level of let’s say Enemy of the State. The screenplay manages to keep the viewer glued to the screen and even though it looks complicated, it is quite simple, fortunately lacking the nowadays-so-common glitches. Although Denzel Washington is playing the role of a cop again, I must say he is still fine here, just cool in different way. I must say the film has really good vibes and I would gladly watch it again sometime. Mainly the time travel chase in the souped up Humvee is a work of a genius :).
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Sure, Scott is able to make a modern sexy thriller and the camera and the directing roll this movie pretty much into the finale. Despite the fact that the theme includes a rather interesting idea of parallel worlds, its realization is very inconspicuous and predictable. More or less up to the point where the characters look through the time of the device and watch its shadows in the present, Deja Vu is a very energetic and electrifying thriller with an element of sci-fi, but the final leap through time is too cheap for me and much like a B-movie. It is useless to look for the type ethical depth that Minority Report offers, because there is no such thing in this film. It's simply dynamic action with a refreshing sci-fi motif, which hardly turns Deja Vu into anything more than just film that is better than average for its genre. That’s too bad.
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Déjà Vu was a very pleasant surprise. At first I was actually thrilled with the idea and the way it’s executed. By the middle, however, the script takes a turn to Hollywood mainstream, the logic gets lost and my enthusiasm waned. When it comes to time travel, it prefers a “whatever happened happened” approach to a “you can change everything” one, but I still think it’s a very well made film that’s worth watching.
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