Hampered by unoriginality and mismarketing

Rating: 4/10 (2 December 2006)

The movie is hampered by unoriginality and bad marketing more than anything else. For anyone who's keeping count this is Denzel Washington's 4th role as a tough guy cop with everything on his hands in 3 years.
To review them: In Out of Time, he plays a cop who is in love with someone who becomes a victim. In Man on Fire, he plays a jaded cop who sees his personal redemption as keeping a certain girl safe. In this film, he plays an Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Agent (I know, big change) who sees his redemption as saving a woman who's about to be murdered, who he's also slowly falling in love with. The recycling of plots and inability to find something new for Denzel Washington to do is the most appropriate use of the title Deja Vu, because it really doesn't have much to do with the plot.
The film is actually more of a time travel movie, in which Denzel Washington and company are able to look through a window in time back 4 and a 1/2 days and try to travel back in order to prevent a massive explosion. Doesn't that sound much cooler? It is in fact much cooler but there was absolutely nothing about that in the plot description at the movie theater. My cousin, who i went to see it with, thought that that was because sci-fi movies don't sell. Personally, I thought it was because the perfect title for the film "Out of Time" was already taken.
One of the main gimmicks that makes the movie cool is the use of surveillance technology featured in the film, that also made the 1998 film "Enemy of the State" so cool. And what do you know: The same director (Tony Scott) AND producer (Jerry Bruckenheimer) were the filmmakers of that project too. Deja vu all over again.