If I Had Ever Been Here Before

I remembered Déjà Vu (2006) from previews and after seeing Don't Let Go, figured we should try it out. Same general idea - cop sees into the past and tries to solve a past crime.

In this one, the cop is Denzel Washington. A ferry in New Orleans is blown up and ATF agent Washington is on the case. He is recruited into a secret project by Adam Goldberg, who has a high-powered surveillance setup that can see into the past - SPOILER. He claims it uses artificial intelligence to process satellite imagery to give a detailed image, and that it can only show you what happened 4 days ago. You can't fast forward or rewind. It takes a while, but Washington figures it out - it's a time TV.

They can use it to focus on anything they want, but since they can't go back, they've got to be sure to focus on the right things. Washington begins to think that ferry passenger Paula Patton is the key, partly intuition, partly she's cute. He goes to her apartment and finds out that someone is trying to buy her truck. He also find "You can save her" on her fridge in magnetic letters. And he has left a message to her on her answering machine.

When Washington figures out that the time tv is really a window, he convinces the scientists to send his past self a note. Unfortunately, he leaves the office before it arrives. His partner follows up on it (in the past) and gets shot. The guy getting away is probably related to the terror incident, but he has left the range of the system. So Washington has to take a mobile unit with a virtual reality display and chase him (in the past) through the highways of the present, in a very silly and unsafe for civilians car chase. Well, this was directed by Tony Scott.

Well, you can guess what comes next - he goes back in time to catch the bomber, who we now know is disturbed wannabe soldier Jim Caviezel. Also, maybe to get with Patton. In a breakneck race against time, they head to the ferry - no time to alert the police, they only have an hour and a half! And they are 90 minutes away! In New Orleans traffic! Will they make it? 

Come on, it's time travel. It almost doesn't matter.

This turned out to be sillier (as in illogical) than I expected. The scriptwriters claim it was airtight before Scott messed it up. Still, Washington is pretty magnetic, as the investigator who sees right to the core of the matter, and expects everyone to get onboard or let him do his thing. Also, New Orleans.