Deja Vu (2007)

[PTeppic]

Just got back (or is that about to go?) from "Deju Vu".

It's a twist on the typical time-travel flick, with the premise being that the lead investigator to a 500+ death terrorist attack on a New Orleans ferry is given access to a top secret FBI device that gives access to real-time footage from 100 hours ago...

The film starts in normal cop mode, only moving into the time-line stuff in the middle third. And no-one mentions grand-fathers, which is quite refreshing, though the exposition is kept moving along and light, yet informative.

Good acting, great effects, funny in places and some clever things to keep track of.

My only concern:
Despite not mentioning the grand-father paradox, surely the ending to the movie created one. Fairly obviously and in full frontal. If the bomb was only a "near miss" would the FBI have sent Agent Pryzwarra (Val Kilmer) and his team to investigate, thus allowing Doug (Denzel) to have gone back in the first place. It's maybe possible to argue away Claire not having died, since most of the leads went via the bomber and being spotted on the ferry CCTV.. oh (thinking aloug here) but only from being traced on the end of the phone to Claire... so it does matter... okay... PARADOX alert!

[Delvo]

And on top of that, the original timeline in which the ferry was blown up also included aspects of the process we were later shown by which that was prevented, such as the investigator's blood and fingerprints in the victim's home.

[Lucien21]

And on top of that, the original timeline in which the ferry was blown up also included aspects of the process we were later shown by which that was prevented, such as the investigator's blood and fingerprints in the victim's home.

[Dave]

I just saw this too (or as my sister asked 'haven't you seen it before?')

I think you have it wrong on the paradox. There was a discussion over linear time vs parallel worlds theory and all this did was prove that parallel worlds are possible. Destiny is not set in stone, there is a choice, "U can Save her."

The fingerprints and blood-soaked bandages are all still there at the house, but they come from a Denzil Washington from a different universe. One who died saving the passengers and the girl in the the new universe, and who never returns from his trip to the past. The investigation by the FBI will not take place now concerning 500+ dead, but there are still questions to be answered about the death of his partner, the ambulance and the bomb.

What was wrong, was that he would have any memory of saying those words, the girl or anything that had not yet happened to him, and now would no longer happen. It is, however, the kind of phrase he probably would say in those circumstances. It shows a connection between them, they are soul mates in whichever universe they meet.

I love Time Travel films. If you can only see a few, make this one of them. It also has action, romance, comedy - should be more popular than it has been.

[PTeppic]

Originally Posted by Dave

The fingerprints and blood-soaked bandages are all still there at the house, but they come from a Denzil Washington from a different universe. One who died saving the passengers and the girl in the the new universe, and who never returns from his trip to the past. The investigation by the FBI will not take place now concerning 500+ dead, but there are still questions to be answered about the death of his partner, the ambulance and the bomb.

Sorry Dave, I'm being Thicky Thickbert this morning (but it is only 6:30am): I don't get how the bandages are from the "other" Denzel, who died, when he could see them in the original timeline... would you be able to see things from one in the other?

[Dave]

I don't wish to dwell on this too much on this, because guess if we go into too much detail we will certainly find a mistake or two. We always do, (the same thing happened in the 'Dr Who' thread.) This is mainly because the film has other reasons for throwing things at us rather than being strictly correct on all the facts - like making an exciting story - rather than it being bad writing.

However, the way I see it...

There are two timelines:

In the first one, Doug went back in time, and then died and never returned. Either that timeline was snuffed out and no longer exists, or else it continues on without Doug, the girl and the ferry passengers. The possibility was discussed with a pencil drawing.

In the second one, Doug never joins the FBI investigation, but meets the girl alive after the explosion. His 'other self' had still already been back and died though.

In both universes a 'back in time' Doug must have existed, complete with blood soaked towels, and crashed ambulances, because the timeline did not diverge when he rescued the girl (note the earring left at the scene of the fire.) The divergence was only after Carol turned back and did not ride the motorcycle to the bridge. That is why he wanted her to stay with him and wear a different dress. It must have occurred sometime around when the girl jumped back onto the ferry and before she got in the car.

You see, I've already found something that isn't right - why then were her fingers cut off? - he stopped that happening much earlier, therefore the divergence would need to be earlier.

I can't defend everything in this. As I said, I know why the writers wanted to do that. They wanted us not to know until the very end if he succeeded or not.

Maybe are multiple timelines with multiple different Dougs, all doing different things. The original radio being on the original SUV was never explained. No one was there (no girl) to turn it on.

Maybe he does join an FBI investiagtion and goes back a second time (as in 'Back to the Future 2') so that there were three Dougs!

As I said, I find these discussions interesting, but they never get it completely right. If they did, we would guess the end immediately.

[Anthony G Williams]

This is my take on it (posted on my SFF blog):

The time is the present, the location New Orleans. A massive car bomb destroys a ferry packed with families, and ATF agent Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington) is assigned to the team to investigate it.

Be warned: I try to avoid spoilers in my reviews, but it really isn't possible with this one, so if you plan to watch the film and want the plot to be a surprise, stop reading NOW!

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Carlin discovers that the FBI are using a "time machine" based on wormhole technology which allows them to look at any point within a radius of a few miles of the machine, but with a fixed timelag of four days and six hours. As the team look back into the past to discover clues to the identity of the bomber, they focus on a young woman, Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton) from whom the bomber obtained the vehicle used in the attack – and whose body had been found in the water near the explosion. Over days of observation, Carlin falls in love with her and, after the bomber has been identified and arrested and the case is closed down, goes back into the past to try to rescue her and to prevent the bombing from happening.

So far so good: it seems to be a straightforward alternate time-line story, with the branch point being Carlin's attempts to alter the past, from which moment the "future" divides into the original time-line in the first part of the film (lets call it TL1) and the new one caused by Carlin's actions, which runs in parallel (TL2). This division into two time-lines is specifically acknowledged in the film, when one of the characters considers the implications of altering the past. Unfortunately, there are some massive plot holes which make a nonsense of the story, which is a shame because it is otherwise an intriguing and entertaining film with some neat touches. If you don't want to know what the problems are, stop reading NOW!

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The problem is that the film-makers get terribly confused between the time-lines. This first becomes obvious during a dramatic and original car chase in TL1, in which Carlin is driving a vehicle while trying to follow, through a portable viewer linked to the time machine, the bomber who is driving the same route 4+ days in the past. He is so distracted that he causes a series of accidents, and when he has to double back he drives past some blazing wrecks – but these also appear in the view of the past. That's just carelessness, but a more fundamental problem is that a whole series of events is misplaced: starting with the murder of his partner (due to a message Carlin had sent into the past) and going through the destruction of the bomber's property as Carlin rescues the girl, and then his subsequent visit to her flat to clean up his injuries (leaving bloodstained dressings), during which the girl rings up the ATF office to check on his identity. These events only occur because of Carlin's efforts to alter the past, and therefore belong in TL2, but they are all observed in TL1, in which the girl died before most of the events which "involve" her. That makes no sense at all.

Yes, I know that the whole premise of the story is impossible anyway, but that isn't the point. I am willing to suspend disbelief and go along with all sorts of impossible plot lines provided that they are internally consistent (I wouldn't otherwise be able to read SFF at all). It's when they lack internal consistency that I lose patience. I am frankly amazed that an entire team of people spent months working on this film and didn't notice, or decided to ignore, these inconsistencies. Either they suffered from collective stupidity, or they assumed that their audience would be too stupid to notice. Not the way to give SF films a good name.

[kaneda]

It's been a while since I've seen this film, but rememeber not being overly impressed with it when I saw it. The only thing I did really like was the score by Harry Gregson-Williams

[gil]

I saw it recently, and was quite impressed. OK, I dare say there were inconsistencies, but, on the whole, they didn't leap out of the screen at you. I'd give it 4 stars out of 5.