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Deja Vu By David DiCerto Catholic News Service NEW YORK (CNS) -- You wouldn't be blamed for thinking you've seen it all before with an action thriller titled "Deja Vu" (Touchstone). Similar to the futuristic police in "Minority Report" who could see crimes before they happened, the present-day cops here peer into the past to solve cases, like the bombing of a New Orleans ferry by local terrorist Carroll Oerstadt (Jim Caviezel) that left hundreds of Mardi Gras revelers dead. Using a high-tech, time-and-space-bending gizmo, the top-secret project can monitor multiple angles of any location within a certain radius -- a portable headset expands the range of view and comes in handy during a deftly choreographed transtime car chase -- but the video feed is always from exactly four days and six hours ago. The operators at the controls, however, have no idea what clues to look for with their voyeuristic toy. Enter Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington), an ATF agent already investigating the blast, who is recruited into the unit by FBI agent Pryzwarra (Val Kilmer) to help track down the bomber. Watching from the present, Carlin finds himself inexplicably drawn to one of the casualties, Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton), who left him a cryptic phone message the morning of the tragedy. The chronologically complicated romance -- she's only alive in the past -- guarantees that the project's inflexible rules against a person attempting to travel back in time will bend as easily as space. Amid the talk of parallel universes and quantum physics, the intriguing concept weaves in current civil-liberties debates about national security and personal privacy, as well as themes as old as Sophocles concerning the question of "fate." The always watchable Washington gives a credible performance and Caviezel exudes the requisite menace. Director Tony Scott ("Crimson Tide") seems more comfortable with explosions than the characters' personal stories, but manages to keep the twisting plot mostly lucid, grafting inventive action sequences onto the time-travel premise, resulting in a smart and sufficiently engaging sci-fi flavored mystery, despite some wormholes in story logic. The film contains some intense action violence, disturbing images of death, blurred shower nudity, brief rear nudity, and some mildly crude language. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III -- adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 -- parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. - - - DiCerto is on the staff of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. More reviews are available online at www.usccb.org/movies. END Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed. CNS · 3211 Fourth St NE · Washington DC 20017 · 202.541.3250 |
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