What would you do if you only had eight minutes to live?
When an Air Force captain wakes up in a stranger’s body aboard a commuter train outside Chicago, figuring out how he got there is only one piece of the larger puzzle that is the Source Code.
The last thing Capt. Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) remembers before waking up on a train bound for Chicago is flying a helicopter in Afghanistan. Beyond not remembering how he got there, he is shocked to find himself trapped in someone else’s body. His disorientation is short-lived, though, because the train explodes eight minutes after he wakes up.
His world becomes even stranger when he wakes up in a steel hatch to find out that he is part of a top-secret government operation called the Source Code that sends him back in time to the eight minutes before the train explodes. His operations contact in the real world, Goodwin (Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air) , explains that the train was only the first target and the same bomber plans to detonate a dirty bomb in downtown Chicago. Stevens’ mission is to find the bomber so they can prevent the second attack.
Naturally, things become a little complicated along the way when Stevens begins to have feelings for Christina Warren (Michelle Monaghan), a girl on the train. Twists and turns abound as he races to find the bomber and save the girl, all in eight minutes or less.
Source Code has a lot of things working for it—The mystery of who the bomber is plays itself out at a nice pace, and does a good job of misleading the audience with every mistake Stevens makes; the eight minute deadline adds nicely to the already-tense situation; and Gyllenhaal provides both gravity and levity to the film, making it easy to empathize with the characters on screen.
Really, the biggest problem with Source Code is its premise. Don’t get me wrong, the idea that someone can be sent back in time to stop a crime is intriguing—though it does feel a lot like Déjà vu. I don’t mean the feeling of déjà vu, I mean the 2006 thriller starring Denzel Washington.
The problem is that Stevens is sent back for eight minutes, then he dies. Then he’s sent back for the same eight minutes, then he dies. Then he’s sent back for the same eight minutes, then he dies. Do you see the pattern? Honestly, the movie started to feel like one of those video games where you have unlimited lives. It was hard to worry about whether or not he’d succeed because he has as many tries as he needs to get it right.
That hiccup aside, Source Code definitely delivers.
7 of 10
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