Denzel Washington reteams with his Crimson Tide and Man on Fire director Tony Scott for this sci-fi thriller about manipulating the past to save lives in the future. Washington plays Doug Carlin, a New Orleans federal agent investigating a major bombing incident, who is given access to a top-secret government team experimenting with the link between the present and the past. He believes he can use their discoveries to prevent the crime from happening. The screenplay provides some provocative commentary on surveillance, home-grown terrorism and the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive strikes, but Scott is far more interested in crash, bang, wallop pyrotechnics - in particular, a freeway car chase that occurs simultaneously in the past and the present. This is a gloriously dumb thriller that occasionally teases with some serious themes, but doesn't quite follow them through.