"Source Code" Gets it Right

On the surface, “Source Code” seems a little odd. The concept of a guy repeatedly traveling back onto a doomed train in the past seems like it offers a limited supply of interest. Once you’ve seen one bomb explode, you’ve seen them all, right? Wrong.  This film combines the elements of acting, writing, and concept without a hitch. The result is a gripping, moving, and fast-paced flick that is the first truly good action film of 2011.

Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhall), a veteran of our war in Afghanistan, wakes up disoriented on a commuter train winding its way to Chicago. He finds himself sitting across from an attractive woman (Michelle Monaghan) who seems to know him. Everybody keeps calling him Sean. Filled with ordinary Americans on the way to work, the train car in which he sits is a microcosm of our country: people in various stages of work-related and personal stress, impatience, resentment, good humor, and the kind of distant familiarity that builds among commuters who see each other for thirty minutes each day.

Colter, who people still insist on calling Sean, is the odd man out. He doesn’t belong there. He desperately wants to get back to his unit in Afghanistan. A firefight is his last memory, one in which his boys were taking heavy casualties. His confusion lasts exactly eight minutes, at which point the everyday atmosphere of the train is shattered by a massive explosion.

Stevens wakes, disoriented again, but this time imprisoned in some sort of military capsule. A military woman identifies herself as Goodwin (Vera Farminga). His fight in Afghanistan is over, she tells him, there’s been a bombing on a train. The military has the ability to let him experience the train through the memory of one of the victims, a man named Sean. His new mission is to find who the bomber is in order to prevent future bombings.

Just like that, Stevens is sent back to the same starting point, sitting across from a woman whom he learns is named Christina in a car full of bored commuters, but this time he knows the ending.

It’s like Groundhog Day except instead of learning to play jazz on the piano, Stevens has to thwart a bomber in eight minute increments.

Jake Gyllenhall does a fantastic job with a tightly written script bringing to life a man completely confused and frantic to return to his unit. His relationship with his father hangs heavy on his conscience. They last parted with angry words and Stevens is desperate to reconcile and let his father know he’s alive. For some reason, the military keeps blocking his attempts to make contact.

Stevens aka Sean, in his eight minute trysts with Christina, finds growing respect and attraction for the woman who is his first sight on each trip. First, he notices she is kind. Then he notices she’s funny and smart. We’ve all noticed her beauty. It’s a small thing in the film, but a nice one, that her character is what attracts him to her rather than her physical attributes alone. It’s such a shame she is already dead.

As more information is revealed, the situation becomes more dire. Gyllenhall pulls it off with a mix of bravery and pathos. The film keeps the pulse pounding. With multiple trips comes multiple explosions. Director Duncan Jones apparently had way too much fun imagining the inferno from different vantage points. The final effect is to keep the audience on the edge of their seats.

Jones doesn’t leave out the warm center, though. At the end, a moment of life pauses, happiness beautifully frozen in time forever. The ending is wholly satisfying.

I did have one quibble which is part of an ongoing gripe about Hollywood, which I can’t reveal without revealing the ending, but it’s minor compared to the quality of the film. Kudos to whomever guesses what I’m talking about.

Rated PG-13 for some violence and disturbing images (mostly of trains blowing up) and language, the film is actually quite clean. The language is rare and innuendo nonexistent as is sexual content. For teens and tweens that can handle intense but not gory action, it would be a great movie.

“Source Code” isn’t going to change the world, but sets a fine example for movies. Well-crafted and conceived, it grips you and thoroughly entertains you until the credits roll. Isn’t that why we go to the movies?