Like the speeding train it is set on, Source Code rolls down one track and doesn't waste time with forks and diversions. There might be some side mysteries here and there, but those looking for weighty reality-altering science-fiction would be disappointed, since the movie is primarily just a story about a guy trying to stop a bomb from going off. The twist, the draw, the hook that sets Jake Gyllenhaal's USAF Black Hawk pilot Captain Colter Stevens apart from the John McClanes, Jack Bauers and Jack Travens is that he's literally acting on borrowed time, on action only eight minutes at a time.
Source Code is so dead set on reaching one conclusion that it runs over its own premise. What is the Source Code? Department of Defense scientist Jeffrey Wright and his subordinate Vera Farmiga can explain, but why bother? That has to do with quantum physics and interesting ideas about parallel timelines. Just rush through a child's example ("You ever see a halo lingering around a lightbulb when it shuts off?") and jump right into to the ticking bomb scenario.
The gist of it is, it's a computer program that allows certain compatible people—in this case Captain Stevens—to re-live the last eight minutes of a dead man's life over and over. Not passively like a video recording, but actively affecting the world he's in, like Groundhog Day if it was a video game level. This time, he's Quantum Leaped into the body of a train bombing victim and he has to find out which one of the passengers planted the bomb, so that back in the "real" world they can arrest the bad terrorist before he sets off a dirty bomb in downtown Chicago. Whenever he fails, he has to restart the level all over again, but as any gamer knows, repetition leads to knowing a little more of what to do the next try.
The movie is exceptionally easy to like. It's a checklist of typically acceptable Hollywood elements (ticking bomb, love at first sight, father-son angst, patriotism) all leading to the sentimental "Isn't humanity precious?" ending, backed by likable actors and crafted in a slick orderly fashion. There's also something clever about how different informations are conveyed through repeating the same eight minutes of events, even though the script takes a lot of shortcuts in building relationships and earning the film's supposedly emotional scenes.
Michelle Monaghan plays a woman who sits across from Captain Stevens (actually his dead avatar) on the train. That they fall in love is predictable, but how do you do it convincingly with only eight minutes of interaction for her? Have them already in the process, of course, and all Stevens has to do is make the decision and reap the benefits—which is either a cheat or just plain skeevy. The same goes with Stevens' strained relationship with his father, which is a passing trait that doesn't play into the character's actions at all until the movie calls for a teary moment of serenity for him.
The movie is harder to commit to memory than it is to dislike. Director Duncan Jones previously commanded a sure grip on mood, aesthetic and lead performance in his debut feature Moon, earning him the rep of a promising talent, but here he's got Gyllenhaal in a reliable yet unchallenged performance and primary locations—a commuter train and a DOD office—devoid of any personality. With the script's entertaining twists and turns taking center stage, it's hard to see what exactly Jones brought to it that a Len Wiseman or Lee Tamahori couldn't have.
Perhaps the Source Code idea should have been paired with a less bombastic plot. A murder, a tragic love story—something that would allow the exploration of the technology more. That would have been brainy yet grounded and fun, sort of like a more accessible Primer. Instead, it gives in to terrorsploitation and downplays the science, thus obfuscating the movie amidst the vast sea of 90's-style siege thrillers that populate FX or Spike TV's lazy Sunday afternoons.
"Source Code" opens April 1, 2011 and is rated PG13. Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller. Directed by Duncan Jones. Written by Ben Ripley. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Jeffrey Wright, Michelle Monaghan , Russell Peters, Vera Farmiga.
