Blog

Jake Gyllenhaal is on a train bound for doom if unless he finds a way to save the passenger and especially a woman he meets onboard in Source Code

(Posted April 5, 2011)
By Maggie Scott
Does it help to know what source code means to appreciate what’s happening in the new thriller, Source Code?  No.  But, it will help to know that director Duncan Jones’s film is, in simple terms, a bizarre-o Ground Hog Day in terms of time repeating itself and a romance happening because of it.
Whereas, Bill Murray’s character has no idea what is happening to him in GHD, while eventually taking gleeful advantage of it, the character of Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) is fairly quickly “briefed” as to what in the blue blazes is happening to him. He will be returning over and over to a train bound for Chicago and an explosion that kills everyone on board.
Clarification for Colter and audience is, nevertheless, intriguingly slow to come. But, in the interest of those who will probably wonder at the end of the film about the significance of the title as far as what just happened to the main character, I’ll provide part of Wikipedia’s definition of source code: “a text written in computer programming language.”
This language is used by programmers, who “specify the actions to be performed by a computer” which is then “translated to binary machine code that the computer can directly read and execute.”
Ben Ripley’s screenplay doesn’t give reviewers much wiggle room when it comes to providing a road map for viewers.  Except for the central conceit of a confused soldier (late of Afghanistan as a helicopter pilot on a mission) speaking one minute with a Captain Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) in what appears to be a military facility. The  next minute finding himself on a Chicago-bound train with eight minutes to find a terrorist intent on detonating a “dirty bomb” in the city, providing many details of how Colter discovers what he needs to stop this crisis definitely qualifies as a spoiler.
Finding the train’s bomb is relatively easy.  Next he has to find who has control of it.  Goodwin says it’s someone among the passengers.  Colter must “get to know the passengers.”  A couple of explosions and a couple of dead-end (literally) guesses later as to who the culprit is, Colter knows who has planted the bomb.  During his multiple “returns” to the ill-fated train, Colter begins to fall for his seat mate.  Christina (Michelle Monaghan) has been talking to “Sean” on their daily trip to Chicago, and has finally decided to take his advice.
Sean is a history teacher who’s been a little slow picking up on Christina’s hopes that he’ll ask her out for coffee.  Now, as Colter looks into Christina’s beaming face, again and again, he realizes that it’s not just a city full of people he wants to save, it’s her. Colter’s other “personal” mission is to find a moment when he can place a call to his father, to let him know he’s “sorry.”
The big head-scratcher in this story is the military end of it; the “classified” project that has control over the captain and is able to manipulate his physical body through time and space, even after seemingly being blown to smithereens.
Goodwin’s boss is a man named Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright) who has high hopes for the source code program as the ultimate weapon against terrorism.  There are more than likely monetary as well as patriotic rewards to be had with its successful demonstration.  With the film’s dramatic concluding revelation about the source code project, the film provides food for thought about the uses and abuses of technology, even for so critical a need as homeland security.
Gyllenhaal’s leading man charms translate well to this dynamo role, and he and Monaghan have significantly appealing chemistry. Rated PG-13 for violence.

Share on Facebook

Tweet

Follow us