Deja Vu

Director: Tony Scott
Genre: Action/Sci-Fi/Thriller
Starring: Denzel Washington (Doug Carlin), Paula Patton (Claire Kuchever), Val Kilmer (Agent Andrew Pryzwarra), James Caviezel (Carroll Oerstadt), Adam Goldberg (Denny), Elden Henson (Gunnars), Erika Alexander (Shanti) & Bruce Greenwood (Jack McCready)Plot: A special agent was on the mission to save lives by time travelling to kill the perpetrator.

Doug (Danzel) was once again played his role as an effective gung-ho no-nonsense super cop which seemingly make us wonder that he has already established his type of cinematography niche with his similar reoccurring typecast roles.

The story takes place in post-Katrina New Orleans (saw the NOPD?) kick starts with scenes of rowdy Navies being disembarked from their ferrying military buses towards the passenger ferry docking at the Algiers pier. The estimated passengers was onboard was over 500.

As the ferry disembarks from the pier nearing the bridge, an explosion occurred resulting in over 500 casualties. Among the casualties were school kids, military personnel, officers, retired officers and their families. Authorities soon to probe that the incident was merely an act of terrorism after samples of debris collected near the river bank indicates that explosives materials was present at the crime scene.

Doug was soon teaming up with a bunch of propeller-heads who have created a teleporter that could look back few days into the past. The technology that was employed by this teleporter gives the ability to follow a subject and its surrounding to provide insight of the leads to an event.

The investigation seems to look one sided as the focus are mainly on one particular casualty called Claire who was made hostage before her dead body was bundled up into the pickup truck that was used to commit the atrocity. Doug was curious why Claire was murdered before the atrocity was committed against the ferry and decided to trace the murderer. Sympathy grew as mellow hearted Doug felt pity and vowed to save her at all costs even if he has to risk himself to travel back to time.

Caroll was soon caught (present time) after a successful raid thanks to the device. Doug was involved in the interrogation and soon finds Caroll was indeed a mysterious character. Despite orders from the superiors that the case was soon to be closed, Doug took matters in his own hands by secretly teaming up with one of the teleport operators called Denny to bring him back to four days before the event happen.

Torn between job policy and humility, Denny agreed to help Doug by teleporting him back four days ago. The rest was predictable when Doug came to Claire’s aid. The whole shoot started from Caroll’s hide-out to Claire’s house and to the ferry embarkation.

The scene was then a re-run of events when the Navies and public was thronging to the ferry like the very begining of the movie with Doug, Claire and Caroll playing cat & mouse chase amidst the crowded ferry.

Claire was captured again and the result is a gunbattle between Doug and Caroll in the lower deck of the ferry as Doug was fighting to free Claire from Caroll’s captivity. Caroll was killed when he was knocked down by Claire’s pickup car. Soon the marine police interfered thinking Doug was the hostage taker and tried to apprehend him. As time was running out, Doug has no choice thus refuse to surrender and sped away the truck load of explosive into the water.

Claire break free from the truck by swimming up to the surface while Doug was trapped inside the wreckage. In split seconds before the truck blow up, Doug was teleported back to his dimension and disappeared.

After the explosion, Claire was distraught thinking that Doug was dead. To her surprise an officer at the scene then hand over Claire to Doug was has just arrived at the scene. And the rest was history as Doug was in experiencing Deja Vu as if he has met her and known her. He actually does..in the other dimension.

Predictable yet entertaining. Wouldn’t complain much. I still give it a 4 star though.

My rating: