David O'ConnellSource Code
May 2nd 2011 05:16
Director Duncan Jones generated enormous future expectations with his stunning debut, Moon (2009), performing a feat similar to that of Gareth Edwards and his miraculous 2010 breakthrough Monsters (2010) – both men, armed with only a miniscule budget, were able to produce arresting, thought-provoking cinema that will long outlive the blockbusters that kept them out of the world's multiplexes.
Could Jones’ follow-up, Source Code, live up to expectations? Though it’s an admittedly taut, compelling sci-fi thriller it exhibits none of the depth of the mercurial Moon which reached enviable heights on the back of Sam Rockwell’s tour-de-force in the lead and the subtleties of Jones’s screenplay.
When airforce pilot Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes aboard a train, not only disoriented but inside the body of another man. He has a mere eight minutes to comprehend his bizarre predicament before a terrorist’s bomb detonates, sending all the train’s inhabitants to a fiery oblivion. Surely, the entire episode is all a dream? Colter wakes from the nightmare in a chrysalis, a state of limbo in which his only communication with the world comes via a monitor on which a military officer Colleen Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) makes oblique references to a mission that he has no recollection of.
Colter soon learns his mission by degrees – to be continually ‘injected’ into the body of the anonymous traveller in eight minute increments to accrue data which gradually sheds light on the bomber’s identity. With each attempt Stevens delves a little further into the mystery, though the dubious motivations of Goodwin and the mysterious superior lurking in the background, Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright), add to his suspicions; his natural empathy for the spunky female traveller Christina (Michelle Monaghan) he wakes up next to on each occasion also weighs heavily on his mind.
Source Code is a thrill ride whilst it lasts, creating intrigue in its early stages as the nature of Colter’s mission, real or imagined, remains cloudy. As minute details begin to manifest in increasingly unlikely ways, some of that intrigue begins to drain away. Gyllenhaal, however, gives a riveting central performance, his presence substantial enough to have us overlooking the story’s increasingly obvious holes. Monaghan, in a thankless repeating role, also deserves plaudits for providing her character with a modicum of enchantment, the kind of girl our hero might want to divert the course of destiny to save. It's not exactly chemistry that they create but neither are their interactions entirely implausible under strained circumstances.
Wright and Farmiga are similarly inhibited by the restrictive dimensions of their roles, though the former gives a muddled, slightly mannered performance that annoys at times whilst the latter is strangely subdued, a far cry from the dynamic, sexy, and laconic charms she offered Jason Reitman’s on-the-money drama Up in the Air (2009).
Source Code (2011) certainly fits the bill for those seeking slick, disposable entertainment. For much of its length it maintains its initial thrust through inventiveness. It’s a shame then that in the latter stages, as the narrative begins to unfold its twists, implausibility takes a firm grasp of the direction of Ben Ripley’s lively screenplay.
Its sense of inner logic waning, the film produces a chain of hollow contrivances; instead of intricate execution, it thunders toward implosion. Though these may seek to exalt a humanist core in support of a pleasurable ending, they only end up contorting a generally excusable sense of illogic into something self-consciously clever; in other words, the effect is a series of outcomes designed to leave audiences scratching their heads in incomprehension.
Source Code opens in Australia on Thursday May 5.
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Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
SPOILER ALERT!!!
I actually was quite happy to have the movie finish with Jake's plying of time and space of having everyone laughing at the moment of their death ... I didn't need the twist, it was unnecessarily convoluted, and oh-aren't-we-so-clever. But very well made all the same. Although for a man with only eight minutes, he faffs around way too much. Michelle and Vera were solid.
I can't wait for Mute.
Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic