Time traveling and terror, post-Katrina

The action thriller “Deja Vu” is set in New Orleans -- now. The original locale was to have been New York’s far less exotic Long Island.

“It felt like the wrong backdrop,” says director Tony Scott. “It didn’t have the same mystery or the same romanticism [of the script].”

Denzel Washington -- in his third collaboration with the director -- stars in “Deja Vu,” which opens Wednesday. The two-time Oscar winner plays Doug Carlin, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who, during the investigation of a devastating terrorist attack on a ferry, learns that he can save the victims’ lives by going back in time. Carlin develops an emotional connection with a woman (Paula Patton) who has a link to the attack and could help stop the catastrophe.

“Deja Vu” is the first Hollywood production shot in New Orleans, post-Hurricane Katrina.

“I had never been to New Orleans,” says Scott, who had worked with Washington on “Crimson Tide” and “Man on Fire.”

It was producer Jerry Bruckheimer who suggested New Orleans as the perfect locale. “I went down there in June [2005], and I was there for one hour and I said, ‘We should do the movie here,’ ” recalls Scott. “It’s unlike any American city. It has those tramcars and old buildings. It’s just a great feeling.”

Then Hurricane Katrina hit Aug. 29. Initially, Disney was worried about sending the cast and crew there because of health concerns and insurance. Finally, says Scott, the studio relented.

“I went back to New Orleans in December,” he says. “I started shooting the first of February.” Scott was able to incorporate the damage to the city in several sequences.

“It was a tremendous morale booster to have a Jerry Bruckheimer film [shooting there],” says Scott. “That Hollywood had the confidence to put a major motion picture into a city that was in trouble at that point in time -- people were so grateful.”

Residents, he says, would stop him on the street and shake his hand. “Not for the money we were bringing into the city but the vote of confidence. It really touched me.”

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-- Susan King