Source Code review

 Number 839 on the top 1000 films of all time is Duncan Jones' science-fiction thriller 'Source Code.'

Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a soldier who becomes an unwilling participant of a scientific programme called Source Code. He is repeatedly sent into an alternate reality where he has the chance to stop a domestic terrorist from blowing up a commuter train and killing everybody on board. Stevens assumes the identity of one of the other passengers and soon forms an attraction to a young woman called Christina Warren (Michelle Monaghan.) Vera Farmiga plays Captain Goodwin - the soldier guiding him through the reality and Jeffrey Wright plays Dr Rutledge - the scientist who created Source Code.

I find a lot of science-fiction very pretentious. It's overly-intellectualised made by people who are not only smarter than me but like to rub that in my face. Or maybe I'm just stupid to realise their big, philosophical points. However, Source Code was not like that at all. And that's what I enjoyed the most: its simplicity. The storyline is easy enough to follow: Captain Stevens must identify a domestic terrorist to stop him from not only blowing up the commuter train but the city of Chicago as well. He has only eight minutes to do this otherwise the programme resets and he must start all over again.

The film has real heart too. Although, I thought that at first, Gyllenhaal and Monaghan didn't have the best chemistry, by the end, I thoroughly warmed to their relationship. I was rooting for the two of them to live happily ever after. But there are moral quandaries abound in Source Code. It is revealed that Colter Stevens, for all intents and purposes, has died in battle and his body is being kept alive in a life-support chamber. His mind is being stimulated within the Source Code programme. And Captain Goodwin must decide whether it is morally ethical to keep him alive or to let him die.

Source Code comes in at just over an hour and a half. A lot of science-fiction goes on far longer than it should, but Duncan Jones picked the right length. It didn't need to be any longer. As the storyline revolves around a time loop, there was a real danger of Source Code becoming monotonous and repetitive, yet this was never the case. 

I might argue that if the film could have been expanded anywhere it would have been with the villain. Derek Frost is a domestic terrorist who thinks that society is sick and should be rebuilt from rubble. But there has to be rubble at first. Perhaps an extra ten minutes or so developing his motivations would have been nice, but then again, I don't think it was that necessary. You can argue that Dr Rutledge was a more obvious villain keeping Stevens in an eternal torment, because he has been the only subject compatible with the Source Code programme. Jeffrey Wright played the villain well with his velvety tones doing little to gloss over his odiousness. 

True, a timeloop story is hardly the most imaginative, I've seen it plenty of times in Star Trek, but the execution of Source Code is what made it such a thrilling and enjoyable watch.