Culture

Director: Duncan Jones, (4/5).
Source Code is 2011's Inception but with less ambiguity and fewer close ups on Leonardo DiCaprio’s concerned, faraway gaze (just kidding, love you Leo).

Bird’s-eye view and panning shots of Chicago open this action/sci-fi gift of a movie. Our protagonist, Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal), wakes in the body of a school teacher who regularly catches the particular commuter train he is on. Initially he panics, as the last things he remembers was flying a Black Hawk in Afghanistan and the helicopter going down. After eight minutes a bomb explodes, and Stevens finds himself strapped to a chair in a metal capsule. On a small screen inside this capsule the blue-eyed Colleen Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) appears, playing the blunt but progressively more humane military handler who explains his mission. Goodwin tells Stevens that he is on a mission to discover the identity of the person who planted the bomb on the Chicago commuter train. Goodwin reluctantly explains that this explosion has already occurred, killing all passengers. She tells him the Source Code is about discovering information from the past to save the present. Goodwin stresses that any heroic actions Stevens may attempt to make will not affect the present day but he disagrees. Cue alternative reality concept and an audience desperately fumbling for the little pieces of scientific logic on the floor of a very dark room.

I hate it when films take on outlandish ideas and can’t make it work, but thank goodness Source Code doesn’t do this. Despite the scientific explanations being quickly described, the film narrative is graspable. The mis-en-scene is minimal in order not to conflict with the overwhelming quantum physics. The acting fits snugly inside the action film genre sock.

When you realise Source Code revolves around a secret U.S. military group out to destroy a terrorist, it may induce a slight twitch in the eye. Don’t let that twitch turn into an eye roll. Duncan Jones has executed a disciplined film; as commercial and audience-caressing it is, it’s also smart and very nicely paced. We can forgive the icky preposterousness and move through to the elegant lounge where Source Code is playing on a huge flat screen.