Originally Posted by Cellar Door (Post 14301263)

Collateral - I initially saw this Michael Mann movie when it was relatively new, but hadn't seen it since. I think I was kind of tired or distracted when I first saw it, because I didn't have a great opinion of it. On rewatching, I liked it a good bit. Cruise as a sort-of charming villain is great, and Foxx is good as the everyman-turned-hero. Also fun to see some actors who weren't as well known back then (Ruffalo, Bardem), plus a cameo from Jason Statham. And Macgyver's buddy is in it, too!

Originally Posted by hanshotfirst1138 (Post 11961055)

Deja Vu- Jerry Bruckheimer and Tony Scott sci-fi action time travel thriller. As far as high-concepts go, the film's central idea is pretty good, and a better speculative fiction writer would probably run wild it. Scott, of course, isn't an artist interested in any such things-he's a flash-and-trash style director who's only interested in how he can bombard the audience with special effects and action. But he does that well. The actors are mostly just scenery for the film's many images that are all employed in the terror that maybe the audience might get bored, constantly shifting POVs, plot twists, and shifting camera work. Denzel Washington stands out in another good Everyman action hero role. Apparently Scott apologized for rewriting the screenwriters' more cerebral screenplay. What's perhaps most interesting is to compare it to other lower-budgeted time travel flicks like Primer, Richard Kelly's brilliant Donnie Darko, Looper, Twelve Monkeys, and others, which attempt to dazzle the audience with their complex plot mechanics. Scott has such a huge budget, he doesn't even need to do that, he can dazzle with special effects and action, in the James Cameron, Michael Bay blockbuster mold, but he's less vulgar than Bay, and at least he's unpretentious.