What if you had to tell someone the most important thing in the world, but you knew they’d never believe you?
DÉJÀ VU DVD Review
Cast Denzel Washington: Doug Carlin Paula Patton: Claire Kuchever Val Kilmer: Agent Andrew Pryzwarra James Caviezel: Carroll Oerstadt Adam Goldberg: Denny
DVD Information Genre: Action/Romance/Sci-Fi/Thriller Region: Region 1 Number of Discs: 1 Studio: Buena Vista Home Entertainment/Touchstone DVD Release Date: April 24, 2007 Run Time: 126 Minutes Specs: Dolby Digital 5.1 – English, Dolby Digital 2.0 French and Spanish; English, French and Spanish Subtitles; Widescreen 2.35:1 – Enhanced for 16x9 televisions
No matter how hard you grab onto something, you still lose it.
Hollywood has pumped out quite a few movies with the element of time travel in its plot. The basic idea behind most of these is that if you can take an event from the past and change it during its present, you can provide a better future.
DÉJÀ VU is definitely a movie that fits this mold. But it’s also a lot more.
Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington – Man on Fire, John Q) is a federal agent with ATF (The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) who is put on assignment to investigate the explosion of a ferry that was carrying members of the United States military and their families, over 500 of which were killed. At first, he just investigates the areas looking for little clues, as well as uses surveillance video from a bridge nearby, to figure out if the explosion was merely an accident, or a criminal act of terrorism. Carlin comes to the conclusion that this was an act of terrorism.
He gets a call about a female body washing up prior to the ferry explosion, which seems odd but he checks it out, regardless, with the coroner. There, he finds the body of Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton – Idlewild.) Carlin figures out that the person who came in contact with her prior to the explosion is the same person responsible for the explosion.
He informs the police working on the case of this link and they could find out who caused the explosion by finding out who killed her first.
A special unit is created to work specifically on this case, which is headed by Agent Andrew Pryzwarra (Val Kilmer – Batman Forever, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.) Pryzwarra recruits Carlin to join his unit, because he has a good eye and overall ability in investigative work. Plus, Carlin has some extra incentive – he wants to find out who was responsible for the death of his partner, who was killed in the explosion.
The film becomes a lot more scientific and pretty unbelievable from here. Along with Pryzwarra and Carlin is a group of people controlling a video feed. The three main characters here are Denny (Adam Goldberg – Stay Alive), Gunnars (Elden Henson – Lords of Dogtown) and Shanti (Erika Alexander - The Cosby Show, Living Single.) Together, they head an operation to use a satellite video stream to see what happened four days ago. Denny is the sarcastic of the bunch and basic leader of the technical operation. Gunnars is the one most adequately trained and knowledgeable about the technology being used. Shanti is the most compassionate and No. 2 in understanding the use of the technology.
The video stream is quite complicated. It can only play back footage from four days prior at the exact time so that what is occurring in the video would be happening if they were in the situation they were watching four days ago. They can cut to various different angles and different people. But they cannot rewind and cannot fast forward, which means they need Carlin’s sharp eye to catch thing the first, and only, go around in trying to solve the case through the video stream of what transpired before it happened.
It was Carlin’s intelligence, however, that realized this capability was not merely a video stream of extreme technological advancement. What was originally only supposed to be used for finding the person responsible for the ferry explosion, Carlin wanted to use it to try and change the past entirely so that the explosion never happened in the first place, and a woman he was falling in love with was never hurt either.
I can’t deny that I found myself pausing the DVD quite a few times in order to make sure I understood what was going on in the film. There is a lot of scientific mumbo-jumbo surrounding the technology they are using, and it can be difficult to grasp and keep up with. But if your able to simplify what the characters are saying, you don’t need to be able to understand the intricacies. You only need to get the general premise of what the technology involved can do, which is given in lamens terms, albeit it mixed in with the language us simple people don’t really understand. So, it’s able to be followed, you just might find your head hurting a little bit as you take a couple brief pauses to keep up.
The cast is absolutely superb in this film. Denzel Washington is obviously the lead, and I love how well he plays his role in movies like this. In action packed movies where he’s forced to play detective, there are few that are better than him. He really keeps it interesting and lets everybody around him know that he’s in charge and he’s going to do things his way as Carlin. All the while, he is passionate and sometimes can’t let things go. He lets his emotions get the best of him. If something isn’t solved all the way and to his satisfaction, he will overstep boundaries to rectify that.
There is a love story here too, and the movie actually revolves around that. Through the investigation of the murder of Kuchever, Carlin gets emotionally attached to her. And though the ferry explosion is the more serious issue and the one his unit was assembled to solve, his heart lies in finding out what happened to her and trying to prevent it.
The role of Kuchever was a good fit for Paula Patton. This was definitely the biggest role she’s played to date in her short film career, even bigger than Idlewild, in my opinion. In this movie, she instantly turned from a scared victim to courageous hero, which showed some versatility.
James Caviezel (The Passion of the Christ) plays the villain in the movie, a terrorist named Carroll Oerstadt. He doesn’t have a lot of lines in the film, but his actions definitely speak louder than words. He does a good job of playing a shady, yet intelligent character with a well planned mission to prove something to the Untied States government.
The supporting case was well filled. For some of the bigger roles in the supporting cast, there were some bigger stars like Kilmer and Goldberg. The rest of the supporting case is mostly filled with names you’ve heard of before, but aren’t the most popular of figures in film. Regardless, I think everybody really plays their characters well and are believable despite the plot’s implausibility.
DÉJÀ VU is fun, action-packed, endearing and very thought provoking. The plot is hard to imagine and sometimes difficult to keep up with its intricacies. But so long as you get the general premise, it’s pretty easy to follow. I really think it’s an overall tremendous film.
The Audio
I didn’t have any problems with the audio. Dialogue was smooth and all the scenes involving explosions came off really well. Music wasn’t very prominent here, but it had its role and was used effectively when included.
Score: 8.5
The Visuals
The visuals were very good as well. The video stream the unit was watching and the way they processed different camera angles was pretty unique and looked good on the DVD. And, of course, the explosions, which weren’t special effects, were nice looking as well. Scenes were vibrant when they needed to be. I really don’t have any complaints about the video quality.
Score: 9.0
The Extras
The Surveillance Window
This is the most endorsed bonus feature of the DVD. If you activate the feature, which includes filmmaker commentary, you will watch the movie and see behind the scenes segments at various stages in the movie before those scenes happen. It’s basically a behind the scenes feature within the movie itself. It touches on various things, including:
- The Ferry Explosion
- Developing The Character of Doug Carlin
- Makeup, Wardrobe & Special Effects
- Cameras of DÉJÀ VU
- Split-Time Car Chase
- Filming In New Orleans
- First Team: Denzel, Tony & Jerry
- Stunts: Compound
- Stunts: Ferry
This is a pretty unique bonus feature. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of it since I don’t like watching movies with commentary and other distractions and interruptions, at least through the first run. I probably would have been just as satisfied with these behind the scenes segments as separate bonus features. But for those that like giving a film a second run, it’s pretty interesting to watch the behind the scenes segments embedded into the actual movie itself.
Deleted Scenes These can be viewed with or without commentary from director Tony Scott
Church Choir: This scene is for emotional appeal and enhancing the love story aspect of the film between Carlin and Kuchever. There wasn’t anything huge here to add to the movie to make it necessary to put in, though. 1:03
Turtle Story: This scene comes as Pryzwarra recruits Carlin to the unit to investigate the ferry explosion. They talk about a part of Carlin’s past, Oklahoma City. This adds to the fact this movie is dedicated to the victims of Katrina by bringing up another real-life tragedy in American history. 2:36
Carlin Studies Claire: As the title of the scene says, Doug is looking into parts of Claire’s life and studying her. His interest in her grows through this and is meant to enhance the love story angle, of course. I do think adding this scene to the film would have been beneficial 2:44
Beth And Abbey See Claire: A close friend of Claire, Beth, and Beth’s daughter see Claire running and call to her, but get no response. It’s nice to see a face to put to Beth’s name, whom we hear in the movie, but don’t otherwise see. But at the point that this scene would show up, it doesn’t really seem worth it to include in the movie. 0:53
Beth and Abbey Live: This is another scene where we see Beth and Abbey, who actually come right up to Claire. But again, at this juncture in the film, it seems extremely pointless to actually add it to the movie. 0:57
Extended Scenes These can be viewed with or without commentary from director Tony Scott
Extended Ferry Aftermath: We see Carlin doing some investigative work at the beginning of the film and coming into contact for the first time with the technology he will later become more acquainted with when he joins the special unit. 1:25
Claire Held Captive: This scene is just a longer version of what we see in the movie when Claire is being held by Oerstadt and Carlin tries to come to the rescue. 2:22
Carlin Shares With Claire: Carlin explains what he knows about Claire and doesn’t divulge much about himself when asked. 1:50
Sneak Peaks
We get a sneak peak of the Kyle XY: Declassified and The Queen DVDs.
The 411: DÉJÀ VU does an incredible job of bringing together a great deal of different stories and different genres into one film. Though this is one of those movies based around a love story, it definitely has its share of intense, action-filled moments that will keep you on the edge of your seat. The Sci-Fi aspect can be a bit confusing if you try to understand every little detail. But get the general premise, and you’re gold. I think this movie is exceptional and definitely worth owning on DVD.
