Colter Stevens is having a bad day. The career soldier has woken up on a commuter train bound for Chicago with a beautiful young woman who insists on calling him by someone else's name. The attention is nice and all but Stevens has no idea how he got where he is or why this woman thinks it's so funny when he insists that she's mistaken him for someone else. And then he blows up. Or, rather, the entire train blows up taking Stevens, the young woman, and everyone else on board with it.
He then wakes up in a barren metal room with a disembodied voice demanding to know if he has found the bomber yet. No? Back you go, then, time to relive those eight minutes over and over and over again until you find the information needed to stop further attacks.
Colter Stevens is in the Source Code, a secretive military program that allows scientists to insert the consciousness of one of their own into the final eight minutes of a dead man's experience, with freedom to explore and interact as that man would have with no limitations. It's not time travel and it's not a simulation. Though it can have no direct impact on the real world present it can be a useful tool to explore the actual events of the past and gather information that can be useful in the real world now. Such as the identity of a terrorist bomber who has already taken out a train full of innocent people and has plans to do far worse.
The sophomore feature from director Duncan Jones -- David Bowie's son, who made a big impression worldwide with the Sam Rockwell starring Moon -- Source Code was meant to be the higher profile follow up that cemented Jones' reputation as the cutting edge voice leading a new wave of smart, sophisticated science fiction. And it mostly does. The writing is very sharp, touching on complex theories of parallel universes and thorny ethical questions without ever going so far in that direction as to be distracting. It gives a feeling of depth without risking losing the attention of a mainstream audience. And Jones' direction is equally sharp, his unfolding of a mystery contained in only eight repeating minutes deft and sure though it is hampered somewhat by occasionally dodgy special effects brought on by the film's budget limitations. But it doesn't quite connect with the solidly satisfying thunk that it could have.
The weak point, alas, is leading man Jake Gyllenhaal. Hollywood continues to inexplicably push Gyllenhaal into leading man roles and Gyllenhaal continues to demonstrate that he just doesn't quite have leading man charisma. Much like Guy Pearce, Gyllenhaal excels in smaller character based roles but seems unable to really carry a film on his own. He's never really bad, per se, and he certainly isn't bad here, but this is a film that demands an exceptional performance from its lead and gets one that is only okay. Which is too bad because the other side of this leading couple - Michelle Monaghan - is positively radiant, delivering a performance that makes it abundantly clear while Colter Stevens would begin to have feelings for her despite the brief nature of their relationship. This should be a major star making performance from Monaghan, one that jumps her up into the top tier of young actresses and you can't help but feel that Gyllenhaal lets her down a bit by not matching her delivery.
All of that said, in an era where science fiction has become increasingly shallow, directors like Duncan Jones and films like Source Code are a welcome breath of fresh air. They're not afraid to be smart and smart enough not to rub the audience's nose in how smart they are and while it's not quite the excellent film that it could have been, Source Code is still quite good.