Damn it started so well...

Rating: 6/10 (18 December 2006)

Deja Vu is this kind of movies that starts really well, that raises high expectations and that unfortunately can't seem to meet them.
First the good points. The cinematography is really good. Tony Scott proves once more that he is really good when it comes to images. The soundtrack is not unforgettable but not unpleasant and fits quite well with the atmosphere. The cast is pretty good too, Denzel Washington gives once more a pretty good performance, and Paula Patton manages to catch the attention without saying much. Actually, the biggest strength of this movie in my opinion is the plot. And unfortunately it's also it's biggest weakness.
The first 3/4 of the movie are really captivating. We can see a policeman (Washington)trying to find a terrorist who is responsible for the explosion of a ferry and the death of more than 500 people. The inquiry is marked by the discovery of the corpse of a woman (Patton) near the scene of the crime but who apparently died before the explosion. Washington is then contacted by a special team who offer him to study the case with a brand new technology that allows them to see in the past. As time goes, we can the case being solved step by step, parts of the story being solved while some still remain a mystery, and we can see Washington being more and more emotionally involved as he discovers he can interact with the past and yet can't save the people in the ferry or the girl with whom he has obviously fallen in love. Everything from the cast to the image serve well this story, managing to keep the suspense needed to catch the audience attention, even when the bad guy is caught and gives us a most intriguing speech. But after that everything falls apart.
Till then we had an original idea, with an almost plausible story, with a good suspense and a lots of questions unanswered, which could have been one of the most original movies of the year if it had finished as it started. But it seems there has been too much originality at the beginning and thus it has been required to give it an ordinary Hollywood ending. Tortured by the fact he can't save anyone while he can see them live in the past, Washington decides to go in the past and manage to do it (we will ignore the fact that sending a piece of paper in the past has nearly been a failure but sending a human being doesn't seem to be much of a problem). He save the girls life and the passenger of the ferry's one, killing the bad guy in between of course. Meanwhile all the question we might have had in during the first part are answered and the ending isn't even an open one. No plot twists, no surprise, nothing... Not to mention that this last part is way too long in my opinion, we still expect something surprising to happen, just to be even more disappointed in the end. I mean, what a waste...
Overall this remains a pleasant movie, especially thanks to the first part and the technical realization. Yet, I can't feel anything but disappointment after seeing this movie, this could have been so much better...