Source Code is a rollercoaster ride

Man on a mission: over and over again, Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) is sent back to relive the eight minutes before a bomb explodes on a packed train, in a race to discover who planted the device
10 April 2012

There are films that are just a great ride.

You don't get off a rollercoaster and start criticising it for having an exaggerated twist in the first half or a feeble turn on the final bend. No more do you feel like pointing out the gaping inconsistencies or philosophical twaddle that enable Source Code, when they occur to you afterwards.

We're on an American double-decker commuter train, charging towards a big city, Chicago, as an aerial view reveals. Jake Gyllenhaal, stubby, hollow-cheeked, wakes with a start in a seat opposite perky Christina (Michelle Monaghan). She obviously knows him and likes him too, because she says: "I took your advice - it was good advice, thank you." But he doesn't have a clue who she is or where they are - and when he goes into the loo, the face he sees in the mirror isn't the one he expects. The ID cards in his pocket belong to a teacher called Sean. But he's Captain Colter Stevens, a helicopter pilot, and the last thing he remembers is crashing in Afghanistan.

Then bang! There's a huge explosion, destroying the whole train. And lo! Colter wakes up, strapped into a leathery pilot's chair, in some strange isolation unit, possibly resembling a 'copter capsule. On a dodgy screen, a pretty woman in military uniform, Goodwin (Vera Farmiga), is quizzing him: "Who bombed the train, Captain?" So he's a man on a mission: being sent back in time to the train, over and over again, always for just eight minutes before the explosion, to find the terrorist who has threatened to follow this outrage, which has already happened, with a much greater one, a dirty bomb in Chicago itself, in a few hours.

We have here Groundhog Day on a much tighter schedule. Every time Colter goes back, things change a bit. He knows more about the people on the train, he acts with greater ruthlessness, knowing how it's going to end and how soon. Can he complete his task? And do the rules of space and time allow him not just to finger the crim but actually to stop the bomb going off?

At first, Colter believes it must all be some kind of simulation. But then he's told he is going into a parallel reality and another body, thanks to a "source code" controlled by a secret agency, trying a new way to fight the war on terror. How does it work? "Quantum physics, it's very complicated." Right. Whatever. They might just as well be waving a magic wand or chanting, "Please Mr Music, will you play?" Doesn't matter.

Where's Colter really, though? "Am I dead?" he asks, a bit concerned, as you would be. But he's a good soldier, following orders. When Goodwin says: "Saving people is what you do best," he nobly responds: "Send me back in!" And besides, he's getting keener on the girl every time ...

"You're beautiful, you're kind, and quite painfully honest," he tells her, after a few repeats.

Source Code is neatly knitted up, giving the audience the key information only at the same time that Colter learns it, so we ride alongside him all the way. The screenplay is by Ben Ripley (Species III, anyone?) and it seems the director, Duncan Jones (David Bowie's son, once Zowie Bowie), was only brought on board after Gyllenhaal had been recruited to play the lead.
But it's a good fit.

Jones's 2009 debut feature, Moon, made quickly and cheaply, was also about one man in a capsule, trying to fight his way out of a baffling situation, while becoming increasingly uncertain about his own reality as an individual. From this tight premise and on a low budget - special effects were limited to models on a modest set at Shepperton Studios - Jones wove a sci-fi cult classic, paying homage to such obvious precursors as 2001, Alien and Outlander.

Here he's remade the ancient fight-on-a-train genre, very effectively, too. The differences each time the eight minutes come around are surprisingly absorbing and there's a pleasing Hitchcockian jokiness at work. Colter tells the ever-unwitting Christina he's got to go, "to save the world, sorta". Surprised, she says to herself she knew "he was a keeper" - and he is. You do have to fancy Gyllenhaal, of course - but that's not so hard these days. So handsome, Jewish, enjoys woodwork, has that concerned look, still just 30 - what's not to like?

Best not to think too much about it afterwards, maybe. So what did happen to Colter in the end? And where's the poor old teacher? How can the past be changed? Never mind, it was good while it lasted. Sometimes that's all you need. Not always what you get.

Source Code
Cert: 12A

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