Best not think too much about the plot of “Source Code,” starring Jake Gyllenhaal, or even what ‘source code’ means. Better to just suspend disbelief and go with it. Of course, you’ll have questions afterward that director Duncan Jones doesn’t answer and that’s why I couldn’t give this science fiction thriller a higher rating. But, all in all, for a movie that keeps reliving the same eight minutes, it’s never boring. This is Groundhog Day on adrenalin. On a commuter train heading into Chicago, Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal, in his best action role to date) wakes up and finds himself sitting across from a beautiful woman named Christina (Michelle Monaghan). Confusion reigns for Colter and when he staggers into the bathroom, the face he sees in the mirror isn’t his. Eight minutes after he wakes up on the train, it explodes and everyone on the train dies. Except for Colter who wakes up in some sort of space capsule with a woman talking to him. He eventually figures out that she is Colleen (Vera Farmiga), an Air Force officer, and she’s giving him orders. Specifically, she’s ordering him back on the train to the moment when he woke up and she’s ordering him to find the bomb on the train as well as who put it there. Colter blinks and he’s on the train again, sitting across from Christina, knowing that the train is going to explode again if he doesn’t come up with answers. He doesn’t. Colter wants other answers when he finds himself back in the capsule, but Colleen and her shadowy boss (Jeffrey Wright) keep telling him there’s no time for explanations. He’s got to get back on the train because the bomb on the train may just be the first in a series of bombs set to destroy Chicago.
As in Groundhog Day, the protagonist can change events within the prescribed time frame so that in each go-round he comes away with more clues about the mystery bomber. And each foray into the specified time frame also further insinuates Colter into the lives of Christina and Colleen. The obvious question is can Colter alter the past? Jake Gyllenhaal’s Colter, although confused for much of the movie, is a solid hero. This is a different kind of war, where getting blown up every eight minutes qualifies as fighting. Farmiga is always good so it’s no surprise to see her morph from cold reason to empathy and Monaghan has believable chemistry with Gyllenhaal. Director Jones does a good job of covering up the holes in Ben Ripley’s script except at the end. Best not to think too much about the conclusion either. 4/1/11
This was an exciting sci-fi thriller with lots of action and plot twists.
ReplyDeleteA very busy actor, Jake Gyllenhaal has been in several movies this year, already. The train the producers used in this film must be very sturdy as we see it blown up 5 or 6 times, every 8 minutes or so. Jake Gyllenhaal is also strurdy because he was blown up with it. Worth seeing.