Déjà Vu is a 2006 American science fiction action film directed by Tony Scott, written by Bill Marsilii and Terry Rossio, and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.

The film stars Denzel Washington, Paula Patton, Jim Caviezel, Val Kilmer, Adam Goldberg and Bruce Greenwood.

It involves an ATF agent who travels back in time in an attempt to prevent a domestic terrorist attack that takes place in New Orleans and to save a woman with whom he falls in love.

ATF Special Agent Doug Carlin discovers evidence of a bomb planted by a domestic terrorist, and examines the body of Claire Kuchever, seemingly killed in the explosion but found in the river shortly before the time of the blast.

Informing Claire's father and searching her apartment, Doug learns that she called his ATF office the morning of the bombing, and determines that she was abducted and killed by the bomber hours before the explosion.

Impressed with Doug's deductive ability, FBI Special Agent Paul Pryzwarra invites him to join a new governmental unit investigating the bombing.

Led by Dr. Alexander Denny, the team utilizes a surveillance program called "Snow White", which they claim uses previous satellite footage to form a triangulated image of events about four-and-a-quarter days in the past.

In the present, the bomber is taken into custody after facial recognition systems identify him as Carroll Oerstadt, an unstable "patriot" rejected from enlisting in the military.

The government closes the investigation, but Doug, convinced that Snow White can be used to alter history, persuades Denny to send him back to the morning of the bombing so he can save Claire and prevent the explosion.

Out of time to disarm the bomb, they drive the vehicle into the river, saving the ferry passengers; Claire swims free, but Doug is unable to escape the damaged truck and dies in the underwater explosion.

Rossio had a one-page idea for a film called Prior Conviction about a cop who uses a Time Window to look seven days into the past to investigate his girlfriend's murder.

[8] However, the creation of Déjà Vu's progenitor was set aside by the September 11, 2001 attacks that disrupted New York-native Marsilii,[8] and the advent of the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, which occupied Los Angeles native Rossio.

[8] Greene stated "the way I try to explain wormholes in terms of bending paper and connecting the corners, that's there in the film and it was fun to see that made it in.

Rossio later wrote that Scott was "Completely the wrong choice, in that Tony had stated he had no interest in making a science fiction film, and suggested the time travel aspect be dumped.

They reworked the script over two weeks and "the revision was deemed so good that not only did Denzel re-commit, he called Tony and talked him into coming back on board.

[16] To create a sense of realism, Scott and Washington interviewed numerous men and women whose real-life occupations pertained to positions in the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Washington has noted that he and Scott conducted similar research during the productions of Man on Fire and Crimson Tide.

[17] The LIDAR apparatus, which was operated by a hired Texan company devoted to the device, performed scans of Claire Kuchever's apartment, the ferry, the ATF office, and actress Paula Patton, among others.

[17] Effects editor Zachary Tucker combined the elements created by the Texan LIDAR company with computer-generated graphics to make possible the scenes of time-travel experienced in the film.

[17] The explosion of the Stumpf was filmed using an actual New Orleans ferry in a portion of the Mississippi River sectioned off especially for the event; the occurrence took over four hours to prepare.

[17] Under the supervision of pyrotechnics expert John Frazier, the ferry was coated entirely with fire retardant and rigged with fifty gasoline bombs including black dirt and diesel, each one set to detonate within a five-second range.

[17] Chris Lebenzon was largely responsible for moving clips from each of the sixteen cameras in place to create the sensation of an extended explosion sequence.

[17] Jim Caviezel's character, Carroll Oerstadt, seemed to mirror in several ways the story of Timothy McVeigh, a domestic terrorist who destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City with a bomb in 1995.

[29] Todd Gilchrist from IGN rated the film eight out of ten, calling it a "bravura set piece", despite an ending that "feels inappropriate given the urgency (and seeming inevitability) of the story's dénouement.