PLOT: Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal), a helicopter pilot serving a tour in Afghanistan, wakes up on board a commuter train in Chicago, with his consciousness somehow transferred to another man’s body. After a few minutes, the train blows up, and he finds himself sitting in a simulation chamber, utterly alone except for an officer (Vera Farmiga) who communicates with him via video screen. He discovers that he’s now embedded in the “Source Code” and that he’s involved in a mission to somehow discover who’s behind the train bombing- with him being forced to repeatedly relieve the same seven minutes prior to the train’s destruction. Along the way, he falls in love with a fellow doomed passenger (Michelle Monaghan).
I can hear it now, the reviews from a not too distant future about Duncan Jones' (director of "Moon") latest film "Source Code." It will sound something like "It's 'Quantum Leap' and 'Groundhog Day' combined." That will be coming from both movie reviewers and the general moving going public. They will be right. For the most part.
"Source Code" follows the same premise as the 1990s TV show "Quantum Leap" (in fact, keep your ears open for a cameo by a famous leaper) where the hero jumps into another's person's body via quantum physics. The theory of quantum physics is explained to the viewer in simple terms so that no one is confused. A military agency found a method to transport a test subject into the body of someone eight minutes before they die. The story allows a brief narrative on how it works; if it went any further it would have lost most of the audience.
The test subject is Capt. Colter Stevens (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) a helicopter pilot in the U.S. Army who was recently on his third tour of duty in Afghanistan.
Jones does a brilliant job of setting the audience up in the first scenes. We are there with Colter when he awakes in a commuter train bound for Chicago. He does not realize immediately that he is in a schoolteacher's body. He has the same reaction that most of us would in a new situation, immediately trying to figure what is happening. After eight minutes the train explodes and the Captain leaps back to his reality in a capsule at an undisclosed location. He is then presented a series of assimilation tests by Colleen Goodwin (played by Vera Farmiga) via a computer screen and video camera. She is with an unknown military agency but we, and Colter, are not sure which one.
The task for Colter is simple; he must keep leaping back into the schoolteacher's body on the train until he finds the bomber. During these leaps back to the train he is developing a relationship with a friend of the schoolteacher, Christina (played by Michelle Monaghan).
His missions continue to be eight minutes long and when he continues to fail he continues to blow up along with the train. The process then has to start all over. With each mission Colter is discovering more and more about the train, the bomb and all of its passengers.
Is this starting to sound like "Groundhog Day?" It is similar in some respects but don't expect any cameos by a famous furry subterranean rodent or any catchy Sonny and Cher songs.
The story continually pulls the viewer in not only because we want to know how Colter saves the day but also why Colter is in this situation in the first place. The story quickly becomes a "who done it" film with great ease because we care about the characters and their outcomes.
Should you see this movie? Yes. This film had a story that kept you engaged. It also presented a real fear of terrorism that most Americans could connect with.
Gyllenhaal is proving himself as a strong leading man. He can be tough, sensitive and comedic while performing the same scenes over and over again.
The entire cast including the strangers on the train seemed to gel together and lead the audience further the down rabbit hole without losing us. Plus, in the end we hear a nice message about why it is still good to be a human in a world that is so bitter and filled with fear.
B +
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