I Wish I Could Save This Film from Blowing Up
Have you ever wished you could relive a moment in order to change its outcome? Maybe you would’ve said “Yes” instead of “No”. Or held back from saying too much. Or given someone another chance instead of giving up. If these were the last minutes of your life, what would you do that you wouldn’t regret? Source Code, the new film starring Jake Gyllenhaal, taps into these universal questions in a thrilling package.
Jake Gyllenhaal stars as an officer who finds himself on a train in somebody else’s body. He soon learns he has eight minutes on that train before it blows up, during which time he must discover the location of the bomb and the identity of its maker. Every time he fails he is transported to a capsule where he must debrief his contact (Vera Farmiga) and is then sent back to pick up where he left off before once again being blown up. Why? There is reason to believe another bomb will go off somewhere in Chicago in a matter of hours, killing thousands.
Duncan Jones, director of 2009’s superb minimalist sci-fi tale Moon, has concocted a story that includes all of this, as well as timely anti-terrorist touches and a romance (a passenger played by Michelle Monaghan strikes his fancy) while also being an exciting puzzle for the audience to solve. Detail-oriented audiences may be able to quickly sort the red herrings from the real culprit; I was. But that won’t take much away from the rest of the film since there’s so much more to chew on in the tightly-packaged hour and a half. How did Capt. Colter Stevens get in the Source Code? Who are the people persistently pushing for details yet reluctant to offer any themselves? Is he traveling through time a la Quantum Leap? (Fun fact: a sneaky tribute to the cult TV series is paid by Scott Bakula being cast as Colter’s father) What happens if he foils the bombing?
Jake Gyllenhaal is great as a disoriented soldier who wants answers, but also knows time is short and there’s a job to do. He is at turns heroic, compassionate, and tragic. Meanwhile, Michelle Monaghan (Mission: Impossible III), while an appealing love interest, is given too little to do than to react to Gyllenhaal with befuddlement or shock. As for Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright… well, the less said about them the better – and that’s not a comment on their performances, rather the discretion not to give too much away.
You may be left scratching your head and ultimately disappointed by the denouement; the film derails with an ending that, after much deliberation, I concluded makes no sense and left me with a bitter taste. That’s quite unfortunate, because, like last month’s The Adjustment Bureau, we have a very good thriller that falls short of being the year’s first great film. Source Code’s script, written by Ben Ripley (Species III and IV), falls into the trap of many sci-fi stories, which is to give us too many things in which to suspend our disbelief. The film’s final moments put us over the edge with a reveal or two too many. The script, in effect, mirrors the film's train ride (though I doubt it's in an intentionally meta way), leaving you wishing you could be transported into somebody's body and stop the man responsible for the film's final moments. Not only that, but one of the characters turns into a villain that comes off as too conventional for a film operating on Source Code’s level.
Source Code is a pretty decent thriller with themes on living every moment as if it were your last and what our lives would be like if we made different choices, as well as asking questions such as “To what extent will we value the lives of the many over the life of one?”. Duncan Jones, with Moon and Source Code, proves himself to be an intelligent storyteller, one who uses sci-fi as a backdrop for compelling situations and characters. He’s also interested in efficient storytelling. Unfortunately, he falls prey this time to crowd-pleasing contrivances rather than letting the story play out organically. Source Code may not measure up to Moon due to its frustratingly disappointing ending, but you’ll at least enjoy the ride before it blows up in your face.
6/10
Should you see it? Rent
Source Code is now in theaters.