deju vu

THE FLICK: Producer Jerry Bruckheimer is a pretty savvy guy. He’s currently responsible for both the #1 show on TV (CSI) and the #1 box-office winner from 2006 (Pirates of the Caribbean 2). So it’s mystifying how he completely botched the marketing for Déjà Vu, a pseudo-sci-fi entry starring Denzel Washington that was pitched to audiences with such an aire of vagueness one was expecting a Shyamalan-style supernatural mindf*** instead of an Enemy of the State-meets-Timecop thriller (writer Bill Marsili actually quotes Time After Time as an inspiration, so that works too). The advertising held everything back; an admirable plan of attack in a world where trailers give away everything except who played “Pedestrian #2. But, truth is, the movie itself is pretty up front about the “big secret” only a scant 20-minutes into the picture. So all that valuable ad time would have been better spent telling people exactly what to expect. Washington plays ATF agent Doug Carlin (yet another in the actor’s long line of noble cops...although I’m pretty sure it’s the first one named “Doug”), one of many investigators involved in the aftermath of a New Orleans ferry disaster – actually a homegrown terrorist attack responsible for the death of over 500 people. Director Tony Scott stages the scene with a mixture of maudlin patriotism and chilling ferocity. It starts the film off with a literal bang and draws you into the more fantastical elements of the plot, which is Carlin’s introduction to “Snow White” – the code name for a secret government project that allows users to observe events precisely 4 days, 3 hours and 25 minutes ago. It’s like time-shifting your criminal investigation with Tivo, only thanks to satellite imagery you can zoom in and see through walls. Get it? Of course, it’s only a matter of time before Carlin gets a jonesin’ to not only investigate the past, but change it, in the process preventing the ferry disaster and saving one unfortunate victim who serves as the film’s love interest. For most of its running time Déjà Vu is laying the groundwork for its third act, but the technology behind Carlin’s investigation (in which he’s joined by a largely ignored Val Kilmer) is just fascinating enough to tide you over until the time-travel clichés kick in. There’s one particularly brilliant car chase with Washington wearing a rig that allows him to see 4 days in the past, but forced to avoid the traffic bearing down on him right now! It’s the sort of signature scene that Bruckheimer should have trumpeted in every trailer and TV spot. But who knows, maybe he was busy promoting his latest spin-off, CSI: Boise, Idaho. THE FEATURES: If you have the patience for it, Déjà Vu offers a pretty clever presentation of its behind-the-scenes material on DVD. Called the “Surveillance Window,” replaying the movie in this mode combines tightly-edited commentary tracks from the filmmakers with seamless branching to featurettes about specific scenes. It’s quite cool and compresses the DVD extras into a uniquely self-contained experience. The only bonus features presented solo are a collection of deleted and extended scenes.