"DEJA VU" A SOFTER TOUCH ON A TITLE OF A HARD-ACTION THRILLER

By
Erica Hector Vital
Red Rock Review
Las Vegas Round The Clock
http://www.lasvegasroundtheclock.com
ericavital@cox.net
ericav@theflickchicks.com
ericav@lasvegasroundtheclock.com

Dejavu
Produced by: Jerry Bruckheimer
Written by: Bill Marsilii and Terry Rossio
Directed by: Tony Scott

Tony Scott loves HumVees. Tony Scott loves explosions. Tony Scott loves a car chase. And the British born, high-octane film director loves a grand and outrageous plot. It is evident in the director’s newest Denzil-driven vehicle, DEJAVU, that Scott also loves science — physics to be exact and all the titillating, time-traveling, mystery unraveling and life-journey correcting possibilities hidden below the surface of Einstein’s most pop-appropriated theories.

When ATF Agent Doug Carlin (Denzil Washington) is brought in to investigate the explosion of a Navy vessel in a New Orleans harbor on the eve of Mardi Gras, we expect the usual plot of brilliant local officer waging a private battle against bureaucracy as the Feds descend on a crime scene Agent Denzil, excuse me I mean Carlin, has already figured out. Having seen Denzil as the principled rogue-element in Tony Scott films before, most recently MAN ON FIRE and before that the Cold-War thriller classic CRIMSON TIDE, we know this determined and outlandishly-mannish Denzil. We know him and we love him.

But what Scott’s direction and the complex screenplay written by the team of Marsilii and Rossio infuse with new energy is Agent Carlin’s sense of curiosity. It is infectious. Denzil’s ATF agent is an intellect tempered by a native New Orleanian’s sense of fatalism. When after a long-night of investigative work, one of the Federal suits played by a meaty but still gorgeous Val Kilmner, suggests that Agent Carlin go home to whatever loved one he has waiting, and Denzil replies that we all lose what we care about so why have anything or anybody waiting, we know the agent has come by this truism the hard way. Carlin’s city, a hurricane ravaged post-Katrina New Orleans which Scott shows us in a few raw, rare shots, clearly shares Agent Carlin’s sentiments.

Yet they also share the inability to stand still and accept the narrative of the perpetually woeful. Both New Orleans and Carlin’s stubborn will to continue to engage in life is established in the idyllic sweep of Scott’s opening sequence as the over 500 doomed sailors and their families embark on that final Mardi Gras cruise. Lurking behind the band music, smiles and drowsy babies in their mothers’ arms as they board, is the horror of the world we now live in. Terror is near and painfully close to us always, Scott seems to say. But he is also introducing the equally as necessary belief that after tragedy, life can and does struggle up through the ashes. Agent Carlin’s phoenix comes to him in the form of a dead woman connected to the explosion, who washes up on shore, body burned, fingers amputated.

Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton) is Carlin’s portal to another world. In shades of camera work reminiscent of Tony’s older brother Ridley in BLADE RUNNER--we catch glimpses of Claire through grainy photo imaging that become so real that Carlin soon becomes love-sick. The life he could have had seems to rest in the sublime beauty of a woman he’d never met and yet comes to know intimately. That such glimpses into Claire’s past, or is it her future, are granted to Agent Carlin by the very Federal bureaucrats we have been trained throughout cinema history to distrust, provides an extra layer of intrigue to performances by Kilmner, Bruce Greenwood, Erika Alexander and Adam Goldberg. Such that when, Carlin is given entree to their inner sanctum we are certain there is a catch. And there is.

It is in Agent Carlin’s pursuit of love, the terrorist, and scientific/mystical clarity (Claire) that the laws of physics enter in and the sci-fi fan’s love of the fantastic and surreal move forward full throttle. Scott’s action sequences in DEJAVU are an egg-head’s delight--best represented by a high-energy highway scene that takes a cinematic triple-gainer into the possibilities of seeing into the past, present and future all at once. Our recent national and international experiences with the idea of the lone terrorist driven by some demonic sense of patriotism or misguided, and therefore violent, religiosity adds to the malevolence of James Caviezel’s portrayal of the murderous Carroll Oerstadt. When he and Denzil meet, and meet again, the force of Caviezel’s gaze is such that you’re not exactly sure who’s gonna win. This is the mark of the true hero/crazed foe pairing. And it’s a bit disturbing how sexy Cavieziel is, whether he’s wearing a crown of thorns as he does in the controversial 2004 film THE PASSION OF CHRIST, or brandishing automatic weaponry. Scott and producer Jerry Bruckheimer have amped up the dichotomy of saviour-destroyer imagery here and delightlfully capitalized on the thin line between the best of sci-fi, action-thriller fare and true romance.

tsqirrs,kFIVE CHICKS with a suggestion to see Denzil in this complex sci-action flick as many times as lovelorn Christopher Reeves fans were compelled to watch and to weep through the 1980’s sci-romance, also with a mystical, pop-science theme, SOMEWHERE IN TIME.