SOURCE CODE review

Duncan Jones's (train) ticket to the big time.

Duncan Jones's superb debut Moon was easily one of the finest films of 2009 and earned him a well deserved BAFTA for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer (it should have won more awards and Sam Rockwell should have at least been nominated for an Oscar). Moon was an unashamedly old school sci-fi flick that had heart as well as brains and is the kind of film that gets the attention of Hollywood producers looking for new directing talent. And so we have Source Code; Jones's follow-up - a movie with a bigger budget and based on someone else's discarded screenplay. Dangerous territory.

Source Code could have gone two ways - more money can often result in ill-disciplined work and disappointment, or Jones could have kept his feet on the ground and made a film which confirms him as a massive new talent and a true Hollywood contender. Thankfully, its the latter.

Colter Stevens, a soldier serving in Afghanistan (Jake Gyllenhaal in his best role for years), wakes up on a train. He doesn't know how he got there. A pretty girl, Christina (Michelle Monaghan), sitting opposite talks to him and refers to him as Sean. Colter, naturally, has a massive wtf moment and then 8 minutes later the train blows up. Colter then wakes up in some kind of weird hexagonal container and a military lady, Colleen Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) talks to him via a TV screen. Turns out that Colter is in something called the 'source code' (I have absolutely no idea why it is called this) and that he has to enter the mind of one of the victims of the train bombing in order to find out who the bomber is before more stuff is blown up. He only gets to re-live the last 8 minutes of this person's life though and he can do it as many times as is needed. Confusing? Yes. Ridiculous? Definitely yes.

The plot in Source Code and the science behind it are absolutely preposterous. How the 'source code' works is explained to us in about 30 seconds by an extremely hammy Jeffrey Wright, playing Dr. Rutledge, the creator of this bizarre machine. Why? Because it doesn't matter, it really doesn't. Source Code is the kind of high-concept sci-fi movie that flies by the seat of its pants - the kind of film that in order to get away with its silliness, needed to be made and performed with complete conviction and executed at break-neck speed so that you don't have too much time to wonder if it all adds up. Thankfully, Jones and the cast are up to the challenge. It is quite simply superb entertainment - brilliantly made and acted, exciting, intelligent, funny and emotionally involving. It appears as though Jones isn't even trying - an effortless sophomore outing.

If Hitchcock and Tony Scott got together to remake Groundhog Day, it probably wouldn't be too dissimilar to Source Code. The opening credits and train setting are pure North By Northwest, the action handled like a professional (and never over-done) and it has a good sense of humour. Like with Moon, this is good, honest science-fiction about the ideas of time-travel, mulitverses and identity swapping as well as asking big human questions about death, the afterlife, regret and reconciliation. As for Gyllenhaal, he has never been better. After the much derided Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, he needed a good comeback in the action arena, and this is it.

For Jones, the future looks very rosy indeed. Remember when Christopher Nolan released his brain bending classic Memento in 2000? Five years later he was given $150 million to make Batman Begins. The rest is history. I hear Zack Snyder might be chucked off the Superman reboot...

4 / 5