Captain Colter Stevens, a US helicopter pilot serving in Afghanistan, wakes up on a commuter train headed into Chicago. He is disoriented, but small details immediately catch his attention. The passenger opposite knows him, but keeps calling him Sean. He has no idea who anyone is or how he got there and as he struggles to get his bearings, the train explodes spectacularly. Stevens wakes up in a strange, disorienting chamber, with only a small screen connecting him to the outside world. He is told that he is taking part in a vital scientific experiment, whereby his consciousness is projected into another person's body. The purpose? To find out who detonates the bomb that destroys the train, in order to prevent the bomber's next planned attack, a dirty bomb due to be detonated later that morning in downtown Chicago. Stevens must keep going back into Sean's body for those last 8 minutes of his life, to try to piece together what happened and prevent a much more deadly attack.
*****
Director Duncan Jones launched himself on the cinema-going public with 2009's "Moon", a fantastic sci-fi debut packed full of great ideas relating to identity and personhood. This, his follow-up, is thankfully blessed with similarly big ideas such as fate, destiny and the value of human life. Jones has been given a much bigger budget to play with this time and although Source Code is more expansive than Moon, it still focuses on and works with a small number of characters, allowing us to get under their skin and engage with them meaningfully.
Coming across as a kind of cross between Quantum Leap and Groundhog Day, Source Code finds Jake Gyllenhaal's Captain Stevens reliving the last 8 minutes of a teacher's life over and over, trying each time to piece together more of the clues as to who is responsible. His initial disorientation, well-conveyed by seasoned brow-furrower Gyllenhaal, gives way to a fierce sense of purpose and focus and at times some much-welcome light-heartedness, necessary to leaven the heaviness of the death and destruction repeatedly emblazoned across the screen. As the commuter and romantic interest across the carriage, Michelle Monaghan brings once again the charm and believability essayed so convincingly in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Mission: Impossible 3. If there is any justice in the world, she will continue to go from strength to strength and enjoy the increased success and profile that her considerable talent merit. Here, she has a considerably tougher role than Gyllenhaal, who is allowed to and indeed must develop, evolve with each successive leap. By contrast Monaghan had to play the same scene, with gradual variations, much straighter, without giving any indication in her performance that she is aware of the events of previous "leaps". It is entirely believable that despite having only just met her, Stevens would want to move heaven and earth to save her, such is her warmth and beauty.
Back in the control room, we find Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air, The Departed) as Stevens main point of contact. She is initially business-like, keeping Stevens focused on the mission, but there is an underlying compassion and sympathy about her and the conflictedness this engenders within her is adroitly conveyed. Jeffrey Wright (Casino Royale, Ali, Syriana) is Farmiga's boss and the overseer of the experiment. Although he is ruthless and abrupt at times, he is no monster, simply a man desperate to see the success of his project and he is as well-fleshed out as anyone else here.
Just as with the peerless Groundhog Day, subtle changes and Stevens increasing ease within the experiment keep the repetitive story elements from becoming boring or predictable. A plot device means that Stevens can only visit the final 8 minutes of Sean's life, so the pace is kept ratcheting along, with Stevens following assorted potentially red herrings, false leads and futile efforts, before finally beginning to close in on the bomber. Gyllenhaal moves through the emotions, from confusion, desperation and frustration, into hope, determination and self-assuredness. The progression is gradual and believable rather than jolting and helps to draw us into the film and Stevens plight in particular.
As rammed-full as it is with great performances, big ideas and a compelling story, Source Code does eventually fall short of great sci-fi in general and the high water mark of Jones's work on Moon in particular. For reasons that are beyond me, Jones eschews the gut-punch and ambiguity of Moon, in favour of tidiness and pat resolutions. Perhaps the magic words, "studio interference" come into play here, with Jones paying the price (as Pegg & Frost did with Paul) for being entrusted with a stack of studio money by having to toe the line on various directives as to story resolution. It doesn't blight one's enjoyment of the film by any stretch of the imagination, as it remains intriguing and inventive. It's just a shame that it couldn't also have been daring. It's something that we don't seem to see so much of these days.
