Somewhere Between 1.7: No Deja Vu

So we found out in Somewhere Between 1.7 last night that Nico is not a killer, just a "black-out" drunk, which we already knew (both attributes), and that Tom is pretty bad, after all, though I still can't see him doing anything to hurt let alone kill his daughter.

I'll give this oddly acted show this: here we are after seven episodes, and we the audience almost haven't a clue as to what's really going on.  That's not easy to do in a narrative.  In effect, it puts the audience in the same boat as Laura and Nico, the two lead characters.

What I don't get - and that's why I tried to go easy, and say "oddly" acted - is why the acting is so obvious, almost cartoonish.  This applies to all the characters, big and small, up and down, including Paula Patton as Laura, who was memorable as Denzel Washington's love interest and focal point of the story in one of the best time-travel movies ever made, Deja Vu.

We're certainly not getting a sense of deja vu in her acting here, in Somewhere Between, where, when she's not rattling off her lines, she's making obvious faces, and whose fault is that?  The director's? And why would that be?  To make Somewhere Between seem more like a comic book?  I have no idea.

But the premise of the story is still intriguing, especially so because, somehow, we still don't know much more than the premise, which is why I keep watching every week, looking for more, looking forward to more.

See you next week.

See also: Somewhere Between: Frequency meets Awake ... Somewhere Between 1.2: Fate ... Somewhere Between 1.3: The Scarf ... Somewhere Between 1.4: The Husband ... Somewhere Between 1.5: The Affair ... Somewhere Between 1.6: Nico

The Kill Point this Sunday on Spike TV

Hey, hostage negotiator movies have always been among my favorites - from Pacino's Dog Day Afternoon to Clive Owen and Denzel Washington in the superb Inside Man last year...

So I'm looking forward to The Kill Point with John Leguizamo and Donnie Wahlberg in a Pittsburgh on Spike TV starting at 9pm this Sunday.... (hey, it has to be vastly better than The Nine)....

I'll be back here with a review on Sunday or Monday. In the meantime, try out your skills as a hostage negotiator in this Kill Point game...

Deja well worth Vu

The only thing not close to perfect about Deja Vu is its name. The movie isn't at all about the pyschological feeling of deja vu. It is, at first, about some very interesting surveillance technology, and for that reason the name makes good enough sense. But it is most profoundly about time travel, pure and simple (or maybe: pure and complicated), which has little do with deja vu, and it gets very high marks for respecting the complexity of the paradox of attempting go back into the past to prevent something bad from happening.

That's paradoxical, because if you succeed, you will have eliminated the very motive that you had for going back into the past in the first place.

Denzel Washington plays the hero with his customary cool and power. Paula Patton is sensitive and compelling as the heroine. Current New Orleans - post-Katrina - makes an excellent location, and the movie worked it into the action with just the right eye for detail.

Most satisfying for me - as a long-time fan of science fiction movies - was the way plot built from hi-tech wizardry that just might be actually possible today to techniques that could actually have an impact on the past to ....

Well, this is where I'll stop, so I don't give anything away. But suffice to say that, in order for a time travel story to work, very clear rules of engagment - in terms of what is possible with the given technology - need to be posted, and then respected. And the plot should be sprinkled with a clue here and there, so we can look back and say, ah yes, with the wisdom of hindsight, that's what was actually going on... Deja Vu does almost of this very well (and, when it doesn't, it gives plausible explanations).

The movie was so good, I'll want to view it again...

XXXXXXXXX S P O I L E R S Below - Don't Read On Unless You've Seen the Movie

Here's my explanation (of course, the right one) for what happens in the end: First, the movie begins with DenzelOne. He is one who investigates the explosion, looks into Claire's murder, etc. When he finally travels two hours back in time near the end of the movie, he creates a universe in which there are two of him: DenzelOne, who travelled back in time; and DenzelTwo, who hasn't traveled, and is living his life as a ATF investigator two hours before the action in the movie begins. DenzelOne dies in the car in the water. DenzelTwo comes to investigate the explosion that almost but did not happen, and will live happily ever with Claire (who does not die in this universe).