A human brain is like a light bulb. This is the inciting concept that requires suspension of disbelief for Source Code, a sci-fi action film that plays out on a smaller scale with more nuanced thematic elements than a run-of-the-mill thriller. It’s not a game changer, but a competent, thoughtful, sometimes exuberant stepping stone for director Duncan Jones on his way to his next original film after Moon debuted to near-unanimous acclaim at Sundance in 2009. Source Code shows him as more than competent at delivering a taut and entertaining thriller that isn’t based on any existing property, and deserving of a chance to write and direct more original work.
That light bulb idea presumes that the electric signals of the brain remain active for a brief period of time after death, like the afterglow of a bulb filament after a switch is turned off. An experimental military program named Source Code uses that concept to extrapolate that somehow a person can be injected into the afterglow memory of another, the final eight minutes of life. In this case, Jake Gyllenhaal plays Capt. Colter Stevens, a helicopter pilot with little recollection of the end of his duty in Afghanistan who is sent into the memory of a schoolteacher before a commuter train explodes on its way to downtown Chicago.
The circumstances of the program and Capt. Stevens’ involvement are murky. The film does a nice job moving between how Gyllenhaal’s character searches for the details of his past and the program while at the same time incrementally achieving the goals of the mission in finding the bomber. In playing the same eight minute sequence over and over again, Jones highlights details at each pass to show how Capt. Stevens approaches the scenario from the standpoint of a mission, each time attempting to decode some bit of information for his handlers.
Overall the cast is very strong, with Gyllenhaal giving more of a Jarhead and less of a Day After Tomorrow performance, Vera Farmiga appropriately understated as Capt. Stevens’ overseer during the mission, and Michelle Monaghan as a perky companion to Gyllenhaal on the train. Jeffrey Wright overplays the leader of the Source Code team, all the way from his overwrought vocal tics to his handicapped appearance. He’s a combination of too many clichés in a film that makes a concerted effort to avoid convention, albeit with mixed success. The plot is predictable, and anyone who pays very close attention to detail can spot the culprit during the first eight minutes Capt. Stevens spends on the train. But, the structure of repeating an event in order to discover its meaning is a tried and true structure even outside of science fiction, going back to Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation in 1974.
There are a lot of messages floating around in Source Code, but they’re handled deftly and with enough subtlety that they exist on the edges of the story, hinted at but never overtly hammered into the brain. It examines theories on time travel and alternate realities, military duty to one’s country, ethics of government in dealing with terrorism, all while remaining amazingly self-contained within the realms of the train, its path, and the Source Code program offices. This is perhaps the chief strength of Jones’ directorial style to this point: he shows an ability to make films about a discrete amount of people and locations, while implying greater ramifications for a greater public. Source Code deals with a lot of potentially weighty topics, but does so with great swiftness as to deliver an entertaining action ride with the ability to leave an audience thinking.
Final Grade: B+