The Big Picture

Denzel Washington and Tony Scott’s collaboration in
Deja Vu
offers a bold, hard sci-fi premise.
The film features a time-bending premise, innovative action sequences, and a strong romantic plot, showcasing Washington’s versatility.

Deja Vu
parallels Christopher Nolan’s
Tenet
with its high-concept approach to time displacement and a focus on saving a pivotal woman.

Denzel Washington and Tony Scott are a match made in heaven. One of the greatest movie star performers lending his talents to Scott’s explosive, vibrant action movies elevates the genre while also expanding Washington’s resume to include movies that are more pop-oriented while still helmed by a true auteur. Despite his legendary run of performances in more “prestigious” films, Washington occasionally branches out into a more ambitious kind of film. A good example of this is the 1998 film Fallen, which began as a standard procedural detective thriller before developing into a supernatural thriller with demonic overtones. But one of his many collaborations with Scott as a director was a science-fiction film, and it remains only one of a small handful of Washington’s ventures into sci-fi.

Déjà Vu is the third of five movies that Scott directed with Washington in the lead role. The film centers on Washington as an ATF agent, Doug Carlin, who is investigating a domestic terrorist bombing and a murder of a woman named Claire (Paula Patton) that may reveal hints about the crime. Washington is brought into a shadowy organization that uses a surveillance tool which can be placed anywhere in the past, to view events from four days prior as if they are in real-time. Carlin takes the technology a few steps further in an effort to not only find the identity of the attacker, but to save Claire and potentially stop the attack altogether. The film’s hard sci-fi premise and visionary action sequences make it one of the boldest swings of Washington’s career.

‘Déjà Vu’ Is the Wildest of Denzel Washington and Tony Scott’s Collaborations
Washington and Scott made five movies together, beginning with Crimson Tide, followed by Man on Fire, Déjà Vu, a remake of The Taking of Pelham 123, and Scott’s final film, Unstoppable. Although each one has plenty to offer in terms of a great lead performance, tense narratives, and thrilling action, Déjà Vu distinguishes itself as the only one that ventures into science fiction. The film’s time-bending premise puts Washington in an environment unlike anything we’ve seen of him before.

The original version of Déjà Vu leaned even harder into the science fiction elements. Scott made the decision to focus more on the action and romance, to the chagrin of the writers, Bill Marsilli and Terry Rossio, who expressed that Scott was the wrong choice since he did not want to emphasize the genre elements as much. Despite this, the film has grown more and more beloved over time, much like most of Scott’s works, and other filmmakers associated with the “vulgar autuerism” movement. Scott’s flashy, frenetic, adrenaline-fueled style of action filmmaking continues to age like wine, and that certainly applies to Déjà Vu.

Related This Psychological Thriller Put Denzel Washington Up Against Supernatural Threats The underrated thriller has certainly earned its cult status.

The film is lighter on action than Man on Fire, or the breakneck Unstoppable, but Déjà Vu features one set-piece that is one of the most innovative, thrilling, and clever sequences in Scott’s entire filmography. After Carlin eventually surmises that their time-bending surveillance technology could be used to actually interact with objects in the past, he uses a wired heads-up-display to engage in a car chase in the past with the terrorist bomber (Jim Caviezel). Carlin drives a car in both the past and present at the same time, relying on the surveillance team leader (Val Kilmer) and his crew guiding him toward the bomber’s car. This sequence is trippy, exhilarating, and exactly the kind of thing you hope for when you’re sold on a time-travel action thriller.

Washington brings a level of gravitas to the character of Carlin that elevates the action, romance, and overall story in a way that few actors can. His chemistry with Patton makes the romantic plot far more effective and apparent than your lesser action movies where romance is shoehorned in an unconvincing manner. Déjà Vu might be the most “out-there” premise for a movie that Washington has ever starred in, with Fallen and his other science fiction film, Virtuosity, in the running, but he brings a level of humanity to the story while never feeling out of place in a more heightened, genre-oriented movie.

‘Déjà Vu’ Makes For a Great Washington Family Double Feature With ‘Tenet’

What makes Déjà Vu an even more interesting watch post-2020 is the fact that Washington’s son, John David Washington, went on to star in Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, another action movie with a premise based around using time-displacing physics to stop a deadly threat. Neither of these films deal with time travel in a conventional sense, and take more of a hard sci-fi approach in attempting to explain and execute the methods, which are stylistically different, but both make for an incredible spectacle.

Another similarity between the two is that saving one particular woman drives both Carlin and The Protagonist from Tenet to succeed in their objectives, as both Claire and Kat’s (Elizabeth Debicki) fates run adjacent to the larger stakes of their respective films. Other characters are more mission-oriented, but Carlin and The Protagonist develop strong bonds with Claire and Kat that end up being pivotal to the mission. While Tenet is not as explicitly romantic as Déjà Vu in this regard, there is an intimacy between the characters that certainly informs their dynamic. Aside from the familial connection, and the plot similarities, both films feature an inventive highway car chase sequence. The action spectacle is a major selling point in Scott’s films, as well as Nolan’s, and it is pulled off very well in both. Although the stakes of these films are quite different, and they each have strengths that differ from one another stylistically, Déjà Vu and Tenet make for a compelling high-concept double billing.

Scott never made a movie that didn’t feel like his own, and the stamp he brings to this one proves his singular directorial talent. Déjà Vu’s status as the wildest of Scott’s films led by Washington also makes it a standout. Déjà Vu is most certainly worth your time.

Déjà Vu is currently available to stream on Tubi in the U.S.

WATCH ON TUBI