Action director (TOP GUN, ENEMY OF THE STATE) Tony Scott’s latest flick is by no means novel by any means.  Its title DÉJÀ VU holds true to the true sense of the meaning that we have seen it all before in one movie or other.  It does begin, at least with cleverly devised (doubling) credits giving the effect of ‘already seen’.

An impressive explosion on a New Orleans ferry follows – courtesy of the pyrotechnics department – signaling a terrorist attack.  ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) agent Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington) makes a great entrance, striding in style, smiles and all, confident of his ability to solve the case. 

With the help of Agent Pryzwarra (Val Kilmer) and gang, he finds the culprit through a huge tech secretive government scanning system that monitors all points of view exactly 4 days in the past.  They are able to see what is happening but unable to alter or look back again at what has occurred.  It all sounds scientific and impressive till all theory is blown to bits with the film taking a turn towards time travel.

That is when DÉJÀ VU falls completely apart.  Not that the film was not already running into problems – narrative-wise.  The scientific explanation for the monitoring is already too complicated for the general audience, evident as one of the government agents, Denny (Adam Goldberg) suddenly gives up and explains it to Carlin by drawing a line on a piece of paper.  From the monitoring, the terrorist Carroll Oerstadt (Jim Caviezel) is arrested and the catastrophe somehow prevented.  But Carlin falls in love with a victim Claire (Paula Patton) that dies in the hands of Oerstadt.  He figures he can go through time to save her.

Carlin does this.  But this means that he risks all if he does not succeed.  Trying to save one person at the risk of all in that died in the ferry?  It does not make sense at all.  In fact, he succeeds but why then must he go though the process of apprehending Oerstadt again?  Of course he succeeds, at great risk and against all odds. 

The car chase that takes place in the past and present (Carlin wears a helmet that enables him to see and chase Oerstadt in the past) is the neatest trick of the film.  But by the time DÉJÀ VU goes into the third act, it is clear that it is going into action mode, formulaic style.  We have all seen this before – mindless action Jerry Bruckheimer style.  And Denzel Washington goes through the entire film with a great big smirk on his face, as if poking fun at the unbelievable plot.