Vintage

Does the U.S. Government have a time machine, which they can use to go back several days and stop some crimes before they actually happen?  Well, if they did, we suppose 9-11 would have been averted unless they couldn’t figure out how to use the damn thing.  But, then again, maybe a couple Nukes would have made it here by now?  Maybe there would have been more 9-11s?  What really is at question is what kind of super secret weapons do we really have?  Anything so outlandish that might be considered something futuristic?

Kind of weird, but I felt like I already had seen this movie before – or was it deja vu?  Okay, you know I was going to get something like that in there sooner or later so I may as well get it over with early. 

Tony Scott’s Déjà vu is a great and fun movie experience.  It doesn’t take itself too seriously, which allows you to have fun with the possibilities that the U.S. Government might have a time machine, which they will late any old ATF agent (Denzel Washington) take for a spin because of his uncanny ability to have hunches about what is “missing” from the crime scenes. 

Frankly, if I tried to explain the movie plot in full I would just confuse you, but it is highly engaging and a fantastic plot that doesn’t get to far ahead of itself (or behind itself depending on you theories of situational time travel). 

Denzel Washington, as usual, delivers a top notch performance as ATF agent Douglas Carlin.  He is smart as a whip, quick and has that typical Denzel humor that he seems to impart on most of his characters.  The movie opens with his investigation of a huge riverboat explosion that kills over 500 people.  He is then recruited by an FBI Agent (Val Kilmer) to sit in on a time machine session.  They are apparently stumped because even though they have this device that can look back in time, it can’t tell them what to look at.  Carlin knows exactly what to look at – ostensibly this hot girl named Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton) who had the misfortune to buy a used car from the terrorist (Caviezel) and ends up dead as a result of it.  As Carlin puts it, “Solve this case and you solve the boat case.”

From here, we are taken into some really cool time tricks.  Outstanding and creative is the car chase involving the same cars on different parts of the time continuum.  Denzel was chasing the villain in his car 4 days from the future – or something like that it. 

This is one of those movies that beg to wow you with how all sorts of little trivial details fit together and it delivers on that promise.  There really is not many holes in this movies except for the all the suspension of disbelief stuff about the U.S. Government have a time machine.  There are the usual paradoxes that are totally ignored as well about double existences in different space-time places.  Would you see yourself?   Could you go back in time 4 days and have a conversation with yourself?  Hey, I think my uncle Benny might have, since it would explain why he always mutters to himself. 

All in all, this is very good to great movie deserving of a fun place on the Cover-Up shelf.  It is so good you will think you have seen in before – maybe you did.  Maybe your parallel self did.  Check it out.  You won’t be disappointed. 

Matthew J. DeReno is a writer living in Pittsburgh.