Déjà Vu

What’s the Story?

A thriller with a science-fiction twist, DDJJ VU begins with a terrorist attack -- a bomb explodes aboard a ferry carrying Navy sailors on leave. Among the authorities trying to sort out the crime scene is ATF agent Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington), who's particularly good at reading details. His acute interpretations of bomb residues, bodies, and video surveillance tapes draw the attention of FBI special agent Pryzwarra (Val Kilmer), who recruits Doug for a special anti-terrorism team. Complications arise when Doug learns that one woman's body (Claire) shows signs of the explosion -- even though she died minutes before the bomb went off. The FBI trots out surveillance technology that enables them to observe her last few days, hoping that she'll lead them to the terrorist. Doug quickly figures out that this set-up isn't what it appears to be – the FBI has the ability to "warp the very fabric of space."

Is It Any Good?

Washington's focused performance holds the movie's various generic and thematic strands together. Doug is certainly an intrepid and even romantic hero, devoting himself to Claire's case. But he's also a believably skeptical detective, and his questions about motives and technologies tend to mirror the audience's. This third collaboration between Washington and director Tony Scott (the others being 2004's Man on Fire and 1995's Crimson Tide) combines elaborate stunts and psychological ambiguities in order to challenge audience expectations.

The effectiveness of this combination is manifest in the movie's characterization of suspect Carroll Oerstadt (Jim Caviezel). His desire for revenge against the U.S. military is at once personal and political, with oblique connections to current recruitment concerns as well as definitions of "patriotism." Such details make Déjà Vu, although uneven, more intriguing than the usual action thriller.