MAN OUT OF TIME: a review of "Source Code"

“SOURCE CODE”
Written by Ben Ripley
Directed by Duncan Jones
*** ½ (three and a half stars)

A man awakens suddenly on a commuter train heading into downtown Chicago. The woman across from him addresses him as Sean Fentress but the name sounds completely unfamiliar to him as he proclaims that he is actually a pilot carrying out a mission in Afghanistan. Feeling increasingly disoriented, the man travels through the train and ends up inside the restroom whereupon gazing into the mirror, the reflection he sees carries a completely different face than his own. And then, the unthinkable occurs when eight minutes after he awakened, a bomb goes off, killing every passenger on the train…including him.

That describes the instantly compelling opening moments of “Source Code,” the second film from Director Duncan Jones, who made an auspicious directorial debut with the haunting and provocative science fiction drama “Moon” (2009). With “Source Code,” Jones strongly weaves a furiously paced and striking race against time framework that again displays how science fiction films do not always have to carry behemoth budgets in order to be effective. Through crisp storytelling, terrific performances and a creative visual presentation, Jones is proving himself to be a filmmaker to watch closely and with “Source Code,” he has delivered another surprisingly entertaining motion picture in a cinematic year filled with happy surprises.

The less said about this film’s plot, the better so as to not ruin the full experience of “Source Code” for you. Jake Gyllenhaal, in a performance of feverish intensity, stars as Colter Stevens, the man who awakens on the commuter train and is addressed as Sean. Not long after he discoverers himself strapped inside of the globe, we learn, through his conversation with Captain Colleen Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) via computer screen, that he is indeed an Army helicopter pilot and has been covertly assigned to an extremely crucial mission. Stevens is the key ingredient in an experimental military technological project that utilizes the titular Source Code, which is essentially a time loop where Stevens is able to virtually enter the body of another human being and re-enact the final eight minutes of their life.

In a storyline that sounds as if it were a science fiction version of “Mission: Impossible,” Stevens is assigned to repeatedly return to the train and live out Sean Fentress’ final eight minutes of life in order to discover the bomb that destroyed the train plus the bomb maker who planted it. While obtaining this information will not save anyone from the train explosion, as it has already happened, it will carry the urgent potential of stopping the bomber from detonating a nuclear device in downtown Chicago.

Stevens returns to the train again and again, causing slight variations in the sequence of events due to his investigations. During each subsequent visit, he grows closer to Christina (played by the lovely Michelle Monaghan), the woman who sits across from him. As he learns more about Christina with every trip in the Source Code time loop, a voyage that always concludes with him being decimated by the bomb, Stevens grows more desperate with trying to save a woman he is destined to lose.

As with Duncan Jones’s first feature, “Source Code” is a smart science fiction film that is more about ideas than explosions, although there are many of them during the film’s briskly paced 94 minute running time. Jones creates images and sequences that reminded me and are certain to remind you of other darkly great sci-fi films like Ken Russell’s “Altered States” (1981), Terry Gilliam’s “Twelve Monkeys” (1995), The Wachowski Brothers’ “Matrix” series (1999, 2002, 2003) and Christopher Nolan’s masterful “Inception” from last year. Yet, the film “Source Code” reminded me of the most was had nothing to do with science fiction at all although it did possess a certain fantastical element. The film in question is Harold Ramis’ finest effort to date, “Groundhog Day” (1993), which starred Bill Murray as a rude and cynical weatherman forced to live the same day over and over and over again.

As with “Groundhog Day,” I was so impressed with how Jones was able to re-create these climactic eight minutes, time and again, always allowing his leading character and the audience to find new pieces of the film’s overarching puzzle. The visual creativity combined with all of the strong performances made for an experience that never grew tiresome or painfully repetitive. Each return visit to the train created greater urgency not solely due to the learned information but mostly to the increasingly wrenching philosophical undercurrents contained within the story.

In addition to some critical stances Jones takes against scientific discoveries that eschew human consequences in favor of corporate greed (a concept explored in “Moon”), there is an almost unbearably painful conceit that sits at the core of “Source Code.” Despite the efforts of Stevens, no one on the train can ever be saved, most of all Christina, whom Stevens is easily falling in love with each return visit. The tragic undercurrent of the story also lies within the fact that no matter what Stevens does and no matter how hard he tries to alter the outcome of the train, he will die after eight minutes every single time.

Much like the doomed Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) from television’s “Lost,” Colter Stevens’ mission is a dance with fate, free will and destiny itself as it is equal parts hopeful and futile. He must be forced to constantly live through his own death, as well as the death of the innocent woman he loves, in order to prevent the senseless slaughter of millions. “Source Code” is a grim wheel of karma and time that Duncan Jones elicits without ever allowing his film to grow pretentious, ponderous, or even depressing. It asks of the characters, as well as the audience exactly what we would do with our lives if we knew we only had an especially finite time to live it. Jones treats all of these heady themes and concepts with the proper reverence and gravity while also delivering a hugely involving popcorn picture.

While I was on the edge of my seat at the first frame and was captivated throughout, "Source Code" did hit a bit of a conceptual speed bump by the time it hit its admittedly head-scratching conclusion, which I am certain some viewers may feel to be a bit of a cheat. While I would not go that far, I do think that the film’s final moments are a comparatively facile finish to the otherwise challenging material that preceded it and it did rob the film, as a whole, of a bit of its power. That said, the ending, which of course I would not dream to reveal here, did nothing to…ahem…derail the experience.

With “Moon” and the even better “Source Code,” Duncan Jones has arrived. So far, he has made two films, while not setting the world on fire, have definitely provided a healthy antidote to the big budgeted and dumbed down science fiction films that usually litter our cineplexes and movie houses. Jones realizes, the very thing that I have written about endlessly on Savage Cinema. That special effects are only tools and can never serve as a substitute for good acting and a compelling story that is well told.

“Source Code” is a very good film and I have a feeling that Duncan Jones is just getting himself warmed up.