Guy de Fraumeni’s Hollywood In The Hamptons

Déja Vu

What’s an orderly, nice guy like Denzel Washington doing running around with raucous scamps like producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Tony Scott? Oh, Denzel may have gotten into a few scrapes as an active kid in Mount Vernon, N.Y., but, golly, as a regular, good fellow married 23 years (to the same woman) with four children to be an active father to, it’s naughty to hang with Jerry and Tony, who must have been the kind of youths that set off firecrackers in tin cans to shake up the neighborhood. They have been phenomenally successful making movies that always seem to end with at least one third of the earth’s area explosively demolished. Their hyper-actioned, ultra-violent products have been fascinatingly demoralizing, mega hits. Now, with Mr. Washington climbing aboard the dynamic duo’s killer machine in Déjà Vu, he has tamed these two mean, widdle kids. Not a lot, mind you, but somewhat.

First, you have to accept the bad boys’ calling card. Innocent folk are enjoying a would-be trip on a New Orleans ferry when – bim-boom-bam! An orange-flamed explosion blows up elderly, white-haired people with little children, sailors in starched white uniforms, young gals – all in painstaking detail and I mean painstaking detail. Never have so many pieces of bloody bits owed so much to two tough hit-makers. Those bright, white uniforms torn up with bright red you-know-what made such beautifully graphic images.

Once you’ve survived the initial shock wave, the screenwriters swiftly exploit three of our most awful disasters; the September 11th catastrophe, Katrina’s flooding and a little of the Oklahoma City bombing. To protect the guilty, I do not give the screenwriters’ names. Mr. Washington appears after the ferry explosion. As Doug Carlin, an unbelievably keen agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Washington is able to discern the perp’s identity. Before then, however, we’re off on tangents and into a time-space warp. Val Kilmer shows up as an FBI agent with a unit that has a “time window lab” for surveillance into the past and might allow Carlin to catch a glimpse of the terrorist! Wait! Did I not mention the be-ooti-ful young woman, lovely but, burnt, drowned and dead – one of the victims of ferry boat bombing, played by Paula Patton. While scanning the days before her demise, Denzel anxiously takes in her personal comings and goings. Some might call him a Peeping Tom! The sensitive, brilliant sleuth falls deeply into something like love for what is now a corpse. Nevertheless, Ms. Patton looks darn good on the autopsy slab. Well, the highly susceptible time traveler thinks so at least. Don’t take him all that seriously. He also thinks he can out-race time itself. Defying any sense of reality, he tries to out distance the terrorist before he can do the dastardly deed. (Yep, you get to know who he is.) That really big hole in this film’s “bag of goodies” quickly drains the film, like a big hole in the toe of a Christmas stocking hung by the fireplace.

Action pictures, like those of Bruck and Scott, create visions of sugar plums in the heads of aficionados of extreme, pushed-to-the-limit action movies. I have to hand it to them for the elegance of their craft. Their Enemy of the State stands out as a pretty smart product. As compared to Déjà Vu, it is an intelligent titan. I would seriously like to believe that the inclusion of the plight of the New Orleans aftermath brought the property to Mr. Washington’s attention. Denzel Washington is a professional actor like James Cagney, one of his idols and acting is his job. You do your absolute best and, at the end of the day, you go home to the wife and kids.

It works for him – two Oscars and a list of respected films two arm-lengths long attest to it. So, who cares if he plays with some bad boys once in a while.

Guy Jean de Fraumeni is the producer/writer/director of award winning European and American feature films. He has been a judge at Major Film and TV award competitions, including the Oscars, the Emmy’s and various film festivals. Sarah Halsey.