Déjà Vu (film)

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Déjà Vu
Film poster
Directed by	Tony Scott
Produced by	Jerry Bruckheimer
Written by	Bill Marsilii Terry Rossio[1]
Starring	Denzel Washington Val Kilmer Paula Patton Bruce Greenwood Adam Goldberg Jim Caviezel
Music by	Harry Gregson-Williams
Cinematography	Paul Cameron
Editing by	Chris Lebenzon
Distributed by	Touchstone Pictures Scott Free
Release date(s)	November 22, 2006
Running time	126 min.
Language	English
Budget	$75,000,000 US
IMDb profile

Déjà Vu is a science fiction crime thriller directed by Tony Scott, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and starring Denzel Washington. The film was released on November 22, 2006.

Contents 1 Plot (as presented in the movie) 2 Extra-plot details 2.1 Timelines of plot 3 Background 4 Cast 5 References 6 See also 7 External links

[edit] Plot (as presented in the movie)

This section describes the plot as presented in the movie. Apparent inconsistencies and the assumption of multiple timelines are discussed in the "Extra-plot details" section below.

On Fat Tuesday in New Orleans, a ferry (the "Alvin T. Stumpf"") is carrying several hundred U.S. Navy sailors and their families, apparently from the USS Nimitz, from the Algiers dock to the celebration, when it explodes mid-river, killing everyone on board. Agent Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington) from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is sent to investigate the explosion and discovers evidence that the attack was one of domestic terrorism. Doug meets with the investigating police officers and FBI Agent Paul Pryzwarra (Val Kilmer), letting them know of his findings. Back at his office, Doug learns about a charred body pulled from the river, that of a Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton). However, unlike the other bodies found in the river, this one is unusual: the body was discovered before the explosion, not afterward.

Pryzwarra runs into Doug again and convinces him to join a newly formed unit whose first case is investigating the explosion. With a team led by scientist Dr. Alexander Denny (Adam Goldberg), they investigate the events leading up to the explosion by using a new program called "Snow White", which enables them to look into the past in detail. The catch is, they can only see the events once... there's no fast forwarding or rewinding. Convinced that Claire is a vital link to the case, Doug persuades the team to focus on her and eventually identifies her killer, who as it turns out is also the ferry's bomber. Doug also discovers that "Snow White" also supports inserting small pieces of mass into the past. Despite Denny's protests against tampering with the past, Doug has the team send a note advising of the terrorist attack to his office in the past, but Doug of the past misses the note. His partner, Larry Minuti (Matt Craven), sees it, however, goes to check up on it and is killed.

Minuti's killer is taken into custody, causing the FBI to shut down its new unit. However, Doug convinces Denny to do one last experiment: send Doug to the past. The procedure is risky, as until now no human has been sent through, and doing so could kill Doug, but he survives the trip. As Doug meets Claire and saves her from being killed, he sets into motion several events that result in scenes that were seen earlier in the movie: the aftermath of an ambulance crashing into a boat-supply store, which then explodes; the words "U CAN SAVE HER" spelled out on Claire's refrigerator; bloody rags in Claire's sink; blood-soaked pieces of cotton in a nearby wastebasket; Doug's fingerprints all over Claire's apartment; and a message on Claire's answering machine from Claire's friend Beth but also with a message from Claire saying that someone is in the house.

Taking Claire with him, Doug goes to the ferry where, with Claire's help, he kills the bomber. However, the bomb is still armed and Doug is running out of time. To save everyone on the ferry, Doug has Claire drive the bomb-filled SUV off the ferry into the water, where he frees her. Doug, however, is unable to get out before the bomb explodes, and is killed.

As Claire mourns Doug's death, she is approached by another Doug Carlin, this one apparently from a different timeline, who consoles her. Realizing that she has not lost Doug after all, Claire tells him that she is okay. As they drive off, the Beach Boys' song, "Don't Worry Baby," which had played at the beginning of the film, plays on the radio.

[edit] Extra-plot details

Although not explicitly shown or even mentioned in the movie, it must be assumed that Doug traveled back in time twice in his attempts to save Claire and the victims from the ferry explosion, failing the first time and succeeding the second.^[2][3] Evidence for this stems from the fact that early in the movie, when we see Doug examining Claire's corpse, she is missing her fingers and wearing a certain red dress. Later on, when we see Doug travel back in time to rescue Claire from the terrorist's (Carroll's) bunker, we can see that she is not wearing the red dress that Doug from the future had seen her dead in, but rather a different outfit - jeans and a white flower blouse. Doug then takes Claire back to her house and we see that it is only at this point that she changes into the red dress in which she is found dead in the future. This can only mean that in the previous timeline Doug had already tried to rescue her once and failed, since the only way for her to be able to change into that red dress would be if Doug had taken her back to her house to do so. (If she had died at Carroll's she would have been found dead in her jeans and white flower blouse instead.) Interestingly, since her fingers are missing when Doug sees her dead in her red dress, Carroll still must have killed her some time after Doug leaves her at her house, since Carroll would be the only one interested in cutting off her fingers to hide the DNA evidence of him being her murderer.

This means the movie must incorporate multiple timelines beyond what we are shown:

• The first is the original timeline where Doug never even knows Claire. (This is because the note had not been sent back in time yet, which is what leads to Claire's involvement.)
• The second is when Claire dies at Carroll's since Doug isn't there to save her. Doug consequently sees her dead in her white flower blouse and jeans.
• The third is when Doug from the future rescues her from Carroll's and takes her to her house but then leaves her there and goes to try and save the ferry by himself, leaving her to be killed by Carroll in her red dress. Doug from the present then sees her dead in her red dress. (Most of the action seen in the film takes place in that timeline.)
• The fourth (which we see) is when Doug from the future rescues her, takes her to her house, but then realizes that if he leaves her at the house, Carroll will come and kill her. This prompts him to take her with him to help him save the ferry.

In the fourth timeline, he realizes he needs to take her with him when he sees the cotton balls soaked in his blood as Claire is tending to his bullet wound. This reminds him of how previously (in the future), he had seen these bloody cotton balls in Claire's bathroom as well, and also how Claire still ends up dying some time after. (One could argue that it is from this moment when Doug sees the cotton balls soaked in his blood that the movie derives its title, as he has already seen it before.) This means that in the previous timeline, he had left her at her house alone, thinking he had saved her, not knowing that Carroll would still somehow find her and kill her. After Doug notices this in the final timeline, he immediately tells her to come with him to the ferry. Claire is surprised, saying, "I thought you said I was safe here," to which Doug responds, "I was wrong."

It was the déjà vu of seeing the red dress and bloody cotton balls again that prompted him to change his mind and take her with him. The alternate Doug from the previous timeline could not have experienced this déjà vu, since he had no memory of seeing the red dress or bloody cotton balls to prompt him to realize that he had been there before and yet Claire had still died. Consequently, Doug needed to experience this déjà vu to help him see that she would die if he left her at her house and went to the ferry alone.

[edit] Timelines of plot

The movie's plot is complicated and possibly very difficult for the casual viewer to grasp. Here's a more detailed outline of the timelines mentioned earlier, with some key plot details:^[2][3]

Timeline #1: Carroll calls Claire about her Bronco but she is unavailable when he wants it. He gets a blue Blazer instead and uses it to blow up the ferry. (He never kills Larry or Claire, and Doug never even meets her. Larry is killed in the ferry explosion causing Doug to get involved with the "snow white" project.) Doug sends a note back for his past self to read which creates Timeline #2.

Timeline #2: Carroll calls Claire about her Bronco but she is unavailable when he wants it. He gets a blue Blazer instead. Larry finds the note sent from the future. (This is when this timeline deviates from Timeline #1.) He goes to chase down Carroll, but gets shot through the Blazer. This makes the car unusable for Carroll because of the bullet holes. (Larry's car is left at the dock which makes the police think he died on the ferry.) Carroll now doesn't have a car to use on the ferry. He is out of time and remembers that Claire had a Bronco. He steals it, kidnaps her, takes her to his house, where he cuts off her fingers after she scratched him and burns her alive in her white blouse and jeans. He dumps her in the river and blows up the ferry. Claire is found in the river and Doug sees her dead in her white blouse and jeans. He goes to her house but there are no bloody cotton balls, answering machine messages, or notes on the fridge. Doug sends a note back for his past self to read (but that Larry actually ends up finding). He later finds out he can travel on time and decides he wants to save her creating Timeline #3 (in Timeline #1 Claire didn't die so Doug didn't have the extra incentive that pushed him to travel back in time). He goes back in time to Timeline #3.

Timeline #3: Carroll calls Claire about her Bronco but she is unavailable when he wants it. He gets a blue Blazer instead. Larry finds the note sent from the future. He goes to chase down Carroll, but gets shot through the Blazer. This makes the car unusable for Carroll because of the bullet holes. (Larry's car is left at the dock which makes the police think he died on the ferry when he never did.) Carroll now doesn't have a car to use on the ferry. He is out of time and remembers that Claire had a Bronco. He steals it, kidnaps her and takes her to his house. (This is when this timeline deviates from Timeline #2.) Doug from the future appears in the hospital, steals the ambulance, and crashes it into Carroll's house just before Carroll is able to kill Claire. After taking a nonfatal bullet wound from Carroll, Doug takes her back to her house and she changes into her red dress. Just in case something goes wrong (which it will), he leaves a note on the fridge reading "U Can Save Her" for Doug from the present to read. As they tend to his bullet wound, his fingerprints and cotton balls soaked in his blood are left at the scene. He thinks she'll be safe so he leaves her at her house. Carroll shows up shortly after, cuts off her fingers and kills her by burning her alive. He throws her in the river and goes to blow up the ferry. Without Claire's help, Doug fails and is killed in the ferry explosion. (The movie begins here.) His body is placed on the dock in a body bag. We know this because of the mobile phone ringing from inside the body bag with the same ringing tone as Doug's; this is made apparent due to the quizzical look on Doug's face. Doug from the present shows up at the scene. Claire is found in the river and Doug from the present sees her dead in her red dress. He goes to her house and sees the note left on the fridge by Doug from the future and the bloody cotton balls in the bathroom which creates Timeline #4 (because the Doug from Timeline #2 who traveled to Timeline #3 never had the opportunity to see any bloody cotton balls). Doug sends a note back for his past self to read. He later finds out he can time travel and decides he wants to save her. He goes back in time to Timeline #4.

Timeline #4: Carroll calls Claire about her Bronco but she is unavailable when he wants it. He gets a blue Blazer instead. Larry finds the note sent from the future. He goes to chase down Carroll, but gets shot through the Blazer. This makes the car unusable for Carroll because of the bullet holes. (Larry's car is left at the dock which makes the police think he died on the ferry when he never did.) Carroll now doesn't have a car to use on the ferry. He is out of time and remembers that Claire had a Bronco. He steals it, kidnaps her and takes her to his house. Doug from the future appears in the hospital, steals the ambulance, and crashes it into Carroll's house just before Carroll is able to kill Claire. After taking a nonfatal bullet wound from Carroll, Doug takes her back to her house and she changes into her red dress. Just in case something goes wrong (which it won't this time), he leaves a note on the fridge reading "U Can Save Her" for Doug from the present to read. As they tend to his bullet wound, his fingerprints and cotton balls soaked in his blood are left at the scene. He almost leaves her at the house, but then he sees the bloody cotton balls and has déjà vu (although since he really did see the cotton balls, it really isn't déjà vu because that is the imaginary feeling of remembering something). (This is when this timeline deviates from Timeline #3.) He notices that he "hasn't changed a thing" from how he remembered seeing it when he investigated the house in Timeline #3, and quickly decides to take Claire with him. Carroll shows up at Claire's house to kill her but she is already gone. He goes to blow up the ferry but Doug from the future and Claire stop it from happening. He dies in the explosion and Doug from the present shows up at the crime scene, knowing nothing.

Here is a graphical representation of what was outlined above. (Click here to view it in high resolution as a PDF file.)

[edit] Background

Filming in New Orleans, Louisiana was delayed following Hurricane Katrina because of the devastation caused by the storm and the collapse of the Federal levees (see: Effects of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans). Many of the exteriors were set to be shot in New Orleans, including a key sequence involving the Canal Street Ferry across the Mississippi River. After the city was reopened, the cast and crew returned to New Orleans to continue filming; some scenes of the post-Katrina devastation were worked into the plot, including in the Lower 9th Ward. They also spent two weeks filming a scene at a local bayou, Four Mile Bayou, in Morgan City, Louisiana.

[edit] Cast

Actor	Role
Denzel Washington	Special Agent Douglas Carlin
Paula Patton	Claire Kuchever
Adam Goldberg	Alexander Denny
Elden Henson	Gunnars
Bruce Greenwood	Jack McCready
Val Kilmer	Agent Paul Pryzwarra
Matt Craven	Larry Minuti
James Caviezel	Carroll Oerstadt

[edit] References

[edit] See also

Primer

[edit] External links

• Déjà Vu at the Internet Movie Database
• US official website
• UK official website
• Official trailer
• Deja Vu at Rotten Tomatoes
• yourMovies interview: Jim Caviezel
• Déjà Vu screenplay for download

v • d • e Films directed by Tony Scott Loving Memory (1969) • The Hunger (1983) • Top Gun (1986) • Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) • Revenge (1990) • Days of Thunder (1990) • The Last Boy Scout (1991) • True Romance (1993) • Crimson Tide (1995) • The Fan (1996) • Enemy of the State (1998) • Spy Game (2001) • Man on Fire (2004) • Domino (2005) • Déjà Vu (2006) •Emma's War (2008) • The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009) • The Warriors (2010)