SOURCE CODE

SOURCE CODE

If I Could Turn Back Time

Directed by Duncan Jones
Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga

Fresh faced director Duncan Jones continues his exploration into the genre of sci-fi with his second offering, Source Code. Following similar themes to his critical hit (and debut) Moon, Source Code offers a very different narrative but retains what is shaping up to be Duncan Jones’ style of paranoid delusions wrapped in faux futuristic settings.

The last thing Captain Colter Stevens remembers is piloting a helicopter in active duty over Afghanistan. But waking up on a commuter train travelling to Chicago he discovers he is not only in the wrong space but also in the wrong body, inhabiting a school teacher on his way to have coffee with friend Christina (Michelle Monaghan). Eight minutes later the train erupts in an explosion, killing everyone and knocking Colter (Jake Gyllenhaal) back to our reality, strapped into a chair of a strange capsule.

Appearing on a screen when Colter regains consciousness, Air Force officer Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) explains that his mission is to relive the school teacher’s last eight minutes of life, and find out who planted the bomb that destroyed the train. Due to some amazing technology involving quirks in quantum physics and the brain’s apparent ability to retain about the last eight minutes activity after death, the creation of the Source Code allows someone to inhabit these eight minutes in a simulated environment. While disarming the bomb won’t save the lives in the simulated Source Code, finding the bomber who planted it is vital to stopping an attack on the next target, New York City. So rather than time-travel, we have something more like time-preservation and observation.

As Captain Colter is forced to relive these eight minutes over and over again, he begins to lose himself in the Source Code, forgetting his mission and obsessing with saving the people on the train.

On paper it sounds very much like Denzel Washington’s Déjà Vu, but really it is miles apart with a much smarter script and generous helpings of paranoia. A more apt comparison would be classic TV series Quantum Leap (listen out for the Scott Bakula cameo) in which a man inhabits the body of another person in order to right a wrong.

Like Moon before it, the nod to influential sci-fi writer Phillip K Dick is unmistakable, with layers of suspicion and isolation; it’s an interesting blend of influences and one that will no doubt pull in the geek demographic. It’s certainly fair to say that the themes in Moon and Source Code are fairly similar, with both films seeing the main protagonists struggling with ideas about social identity and being a cog in a larger, unseen machine.

The performances are all fairly well done, though nobody is outstanding and I found Jeffrey Wright’s performance of inventor and narcissist Dr Rutledge to be particularly cheesey and off putting.

If you aren’t a big sci-fi fan don’t fret because the story doesn’t let itself get bogged down with the how and whys of the technology, it’s more about acceptance for Captain Colter’s situation. If you are into sci-fi, this is a bit of a no brain-er, you’ll get some kicks out of Source Code. And while I don’t think it has the same mainstream appeal as runaway sci-fi success Inception, I do think this will find its home amongst the box office

_TOM VARIAN