Déjà vu

Review by: Doc

I need to see this movie again, pun intended...
I need to see this movie again, pun intended. I had delayed seeing it after being swayed by some so-so reviews from folks who are obviously not sci-fi fans. I am and I loved it.


Denzel Washington is back as his trademark brooding tough-guy cop who this round works for the ATF and is called to investigate the terrorist bombing of a New Orleans ferry filled with sailors on leave for Mardi Gras. Everyone who has seen this trailer knows the ferry explodes and the scenes of loading families, smiling sailors, and crowds of children make you want to scream at them to just run away. This starts the suspense and it just builds from there. The investigation takes a turn when the body of a young woman is found burned in a terrorist explosion but too far away to be part of the ferry crowd. Paula Patton plays the comely corpse who haunts Denzel from her autopsy onward. After he demonstrates his investigator chops to the FBI he is brought into a secret surveillance group which can peer exactly 4 days and 6 hours into the past. He directs the view to the corpse, Clair Kuchever, while she still lives as she seems to be their only lead. Viewing her life only drives Denzel harder.


The past “remote-viewing” is well-done and the car chase following a car from 4 days ago is one of the most attention-grabbing movie effects I’ve ever seen and Jim Caviezel makes a remarkable convincing psychopathic terrorist.


Yes, there are time paradoxes enough to give a physicist a stroke and the medical details drove me crazy (“Oh, he’s fine, he was only shot through the chest!) but I loved it anyway. The suspense builds, the telegraphed details don’t always lead where you think and the resolution is satisfying. This gets 4 of 5 scalpels and a time-traveling phalanx up.



Doc Hollywood.

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