Movie Review: Source Code

Source Code (2011) 9/10
Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) is sent back into the body of a man on a commuter train eight minutes before the train is blown up, killing everyone on board. His mission: Discover the bomber so that he can be apprehended. His problem: He has only those last eight minutes in which to work–but he can go back again and again. Directed by Duncan Jones.

Source Code is an excellent, rapid-fire thriller. It’s heart-pounding while at the same time being thoughtful. It’s meaty science fiction: Maybe everything is explained too rapidly, but we always have enough information to keep us going, and the pacing of revelation is well done; we find out what we need to know about “Source Code” at just the right times.

The titular Source Code is a nice bit of quantum physics technobabble. Living creatures, upon dying, leave a residual signature of the last eight minutes of their life. That signature (the “source code”) can be captured in a computer program, and the consciousness of an individual hooked up to that program, provided he meets very specific criteria, can inhabit the source code. Because he’s in it, he experiences it as real. It’s more complicated, in part because it’s babble and in part because bits and pieces are revealed in the course of the film that I won’t give away, and in part because it would take many hundreds of words to explain it, and why bother?

The why bother factor is something you may perceive as a flaw in the film, but I think it’s in the film’s favor. It starts as a lovely “what if.” Most such what ifs will say “What if you could go back and relive eight minutes before a disaster and prevent that disaster?” But Colter can’t prevent the train crash, which is fixed in the past; he can only understand it, and that’s a vital mission. Surrounding the what if, then, is all this exposition. I’m pleased with how rapidly the exposition is dispensed with. It’s the opposite of Inception, which spends most of its time explaining “inception.” Source Code may err in the opposite direction, but it makes for a much more exciting film.

Early on in the film, we realize there are two mysteries, and two adventures. First is the one you saw in the previews: Find the bomber. Second is the mystery developing around Colter Stevens: Where is he when he’s not on the train? How did he become a part of the Source Code project? What is the capsule he finds himself in?

The two-pronged mystery of a lone man on a baffling mission was earlier explored by Duncan Jones in his excellent first film Moon. In fact, I’ve seen people complain that it’s the “same film.” Oh sure, it absolutely is, except for everything that happens, the pacing, the style, and the way the plot is structured. Otherwise, they’re identical. /sarcasm.

Jones is definitely showing us he has a theme he wants to explore. Both of his films have been about men who don’t quite know who they are or what their purpose is. Both men deal with a potential conflict between personal wishes and duty. These are interesting themes, definitely worthy of multiple films, and I look forward to more from Jones.

One major difference between Moon and Source Code is that the first is a low-budget indie, and the second is a big-budget thriller. Source Code goes through multiple codas in Return of the King fashion. I tend to feel three endings is too many for a movie, and it felt to me very much like a studio decision: The price Jones paid for his big budget.

Nonetheless, I highly recommend Source Code.