FROM THE BUCKET REVIEWS ARCHIVE

Review: Source Code

Danny Baldwin · April 4, 2011

Your liking of Source Code will, to some extent, be determined by whether you judge it as science-fiction or as an action-thriller. While the film has been advertised as the former and does indeed involve computers and futuristic technology, it will be disappointing if you are expecting the upfront thematic density of director Duncan Jones’ previous film, the indie hit Moon. Source Code doesn’t really have a main allegory and, as a result, the thought-milage you get out of it will be determined by how much you read into its ambiguous conclusion. That said, if you accept the movie as a straightforward action-thriller with the occasional cerebral element, you will be pretty damn satisfied by the end. This is a beautifully filmed, tightly assembled (at a mere 85 minutes sans credits), and welcomely unpatronizing thrill ride. Potentially loftier ambitions aside, Source Code is the perfect warm-up for the summer movie season.

The story begins as our hero, Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal), awakes on a Chicago train in what he realizes is another man’s body. He is accompanied by Christina (Michelle Monaghan), who we eventually realize is the man’s student, with whom shares some romantic tension. Eight minutes later, the train explodes. Stevens then finds himself in a mysterious, enclosed capsule, where Air Force Officer Goodwin (Vera Farmiga, attractive as ever despite the formal setting) greets him on a TV monitor. Despite his confused state–the last he remembers, he was in Afghanistan–she presses on with the mission, dictated by her supervisor Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright). By a means known as “the source code,” which invokes a computer-based parallel reality, Stevens is to relive those eight moments over and over until he can determine who bombed the train, as they are still wreaking havoc upon the city in the present. As the film progresses, more and more questions are answers, but I will not spoil any further.

Thankfully, director Jones never falls for either of the two obvious traps the material lends itself to. First, sending Stevens into essentially the same scene on seven separate occasions, Ben Ripley’s screenplay ran the risk of seeming repetitive and therefore losing the viewer’s interest. But outside of the grander narrative’s general allure, Jones keeps the audience sucked in on a scene-to-scene basis by his superior craftsmanship. Each of Stevens’ trips into the source code are so well paced and distinct from one another that they are never grating, as was overwhelmingly the case in the action sequences of the less-skilled recent film Sucker Punch. Not to mention, even though each of these scenes begins at the same point in time, the Gyllenhaal/Monaghan romance develops throughout, proving something extra endearing each time. Secondly, Jones and Ripley never turn Stevens into some kind of Schwarzeneggeresque superhuman, despite his training his military training, wisely keeping the action grounded in reality. This decision is crucial to the audience buying into the somewhat loosely-defined, far-out story concept as if it were actually possible.

After uninspired turns in 2004’s The Day After Tomorrow and last year’s Prince of Persia, Source Code may have been Jake Gyllenhaal’s last chance to prove himself as a credible action star and, for the most part, he pulls it off. Up to this point, the actor struggled to convert his everyman charm into a bankable finesse for the brawnier, fast-paced genre, but finally, he does so with flying colors. It is out of the selfless drive you would expect of a military man that Stevens takes to the jarring source code scenario — both for the good of humanity and his developing love for a woman. (Ironically, Gyllenhaal plays a far more credible soldier in Source Code than he did in the agenda-driven Jarhead, and he does so with great charisma and action smarts.) Leading the show with both an identifiable sense of humanity and a strong command over the audience, Gyllenhaal proves himself the perfect man for the role. Not to mention, the rest of the cast–Farmiga, Monaghan, and Wright–support him sturdily and make Source Code an unusually good showcase of Hollywood acting.

After so much praise for Source Code as a popcorn flick, it is worth elaborating on why it isn’t the new science-fiction masterpiece of the 2000s. Quite simply, the reason is that it is not self-contained enough to properly represent the genre. Instead, the film could be called “tangential sci-fi” — in other words, there are plenty of futuristic ideas that serve as food-for-thought, but the larger narrative does not directly service them by forming a thesis of its own. Jones seems to approach the material in a manner that says: if it works for you as science-fiction, great, but my focus is on making the movie work even if it doesn’t. This is perfectly noble, because a completionist approach frankly may not have suited the story; Source Code is in many ways the thematic cousin of The Adjustment Bureau, and that film crashed and burned in its third-act attempt to fully realize itself as sci-fi. As it is, Source Code stands both exceedingly thoughtful for well-made for an action blockbuster, a form in which it will undoubtedly please hoards of moviegoers.

* * *

Source Code (2011, USA). Produced by Jeb Brody, Stuart Fenegan, Fabrice Gianfermi, Mark Gordon, Hawk Koch, Sarah Platt, Philippe Rousselet, Tracy Underwood, and Jordan Wynn. Directed by Duncan Jones. Written for the screen by Ben Ripley. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga, and Jeffrey Wright. Distributed by Summit Entertainment. Rated PG-13 with a running time of 93 minutes.