MOVIE TITLE: Déjà Vu

RATING: ★★★★★

WHO'S IN IT: Denzel Washington, Denzel Washington's smile, Denzel Washington's walk, Val Kilmer, Paula Patton, Bruce Greenwood

RUNNING TIME: 126 minutes

WHAT IT'S ABOUT: Navy men in white rush for the dock, a little girl is in tears as her Teddy Bear falls into the water and an explosion rips through the scene of a ferry on an ordinary day that is ordinary no more. Not with 543 people dead.

Then Denzel Washington enters as Alcohol Tobacco and Firearm (ATF) agent Doug Carlin who, after an examination of the underside of a bridge puts away any notions of an accident. And he concludes that the murder of Claire Kuckever (played by Paula Patton) is the key to solving the ferry bombing, one of the more tasteful or distasteful scenes (depending on personal tastes) coming when he rubs a finger on the dead woman's forehead and tastes it to identify residue. He is asked to be part of a team observing a surveillance tape from a system called 'Snow White' that makes the look-sees in Enemy of the State look like Space Invaders.

He is told that it is always four days, six hours, three minutes and 45 seconds behind, but soon figures that it is real time - past time. That's when things really, really get going, as he sends a note to himself, they catch the bad guy, Carroll Oerstadt (played by Jim Caviezel). And that is when things really, really, really, really get going, as the race is on in the past to prevent the future bombing which by then is the past in the life ahead. Oh. A woman who is dead in the future is key to it all, full of life in the past which for her is the present, in which a man who will die in the future but live in that future's future is the guiding hand.

(Heh heh. If you did not quite get all of that don't feel bad. It was meant to be a bit mudled). Images of Carlin in the present and (a life-sized) Kuckever in the past that were almost superimposed become the real thing when he goes back in time.

Some decent lines are woven into the tale where the past, present and future are interwoven but not confused, the different streams touching on things like duct tape, a Teddy Bear and a 'U Can Save Her' sign on an apartment wall Carlin left for himself at a past (or future) time. Like Denzel Washington saying "I am going to speak slowly, so those of you in the room with Ph.D.s can understand." No Ph.D. required to follow this one; it bends time but it is clear.

LONG STORY SHORT: It is classified as 'Suspense', because to label it by the different elements that are combined would be just too much.

THE REEL LOW-DOWN: Back To The Future meets Enemy of the State meets a 9/11 theory or two.

BONUS FEATURES: The Surveillance Window, through which you go back to the making of several scenes, including the ferry explosion and stunts on the ferry.

Suspense

Ratings:

★