|
Colter Stevens is in
trouble.
Colter Stevens is in trouble, and he doesn’t know it.
Colter Stevens is in trouble, and he doesn’t know it. He’s on a train that’s
about to explode.
Colter Stevens is in trouble, and he doesn’t know it. He’s on a train that’s
about to explode, and he’s somehow been transported into another man’s body.
Colter Stevens is in trouble, and he doesn’t know it. He’s on a train that’s
about to explode and he’s somehow been transported into another man’s body, and
he must find the bomber and prevent a larger and far more lethal explosion that
is in the works.
He has eight minutes to do it. Eight minutes during which he is inserted into
that speeding train again and again by means of a mind meld with the brain of a
victim of the bombing -- the source code of data from the man’s final breaths of
life.
Hard-wired to a simulation device in a lab, Stevens -- inside the dead man, as
it were -- scours those unsuspecting minutes repeatedly to glean information.
Each time he rides the train he learns more, acts more pointedly, comes closer
to fulfilling his mission -- which must, of course, be completed as soon as
possible.
But back in the real world, where a mysterious group of scientists talk to him
through an intermediary (Vera Farmiga), Stevens is increasingly unhappy. He
doesn’t know where he ‘really’ is or how long he’s been there. He wants to save
the people on the train -- that’s what soldiers do, after all. And he’s grown
attached to the girl (Michelle Monaghan) with whom the dead man is traveling.
In the real world, though, they’re all the passengers are already dead (indeed,
if they weren’t there wouldn’t even be any source code...). And besides: he
doesn’t have enough time to both thwart the big disaster that awaits and to save
the passengers. He has to sacrifice them to save millions of others.
This is the deliciously clever premise of “Source Code,” the new thriller from
director Duncan Jones and screenwriter Ben Ripley. Jones is following up his
sensational 2009 debut, “Moon,” which shared with this film an air of
old-fashioned science-fiction: a simple what-if and a simple puzzle, plopped
into a ticking-clock narrative and giving rise to several fascinating insights
into the human sense of the self.
In “Moon,” a lone man accidentally uncovered something startling about his
identity; here, a man willingly subsumes himself in someone else’s life without
having any concrete idea about the reality of his own situation. Both films
present us with men who function as machines for their bosses and who gradually
become more (and, ingeniously, less) human through their work. They’re sturdy
and exceedingly well-made movies, and I bet the likes of Ray Bradbury and the
late Isaac Asimov would enjoy them immensely.
Jones has cast both of his films extremely well. In “Moon,” Sam Rockwell
summoned his wonted mania slowly and in tightly contained space and plotting. In
“Source Code,” Jake Gyllenhaal imparts a vital physicality and vulnerability as
Stevens -- and carries, as movie stars do, ironic traces of some of his other
performances, particularly “Donnie Darko” and “Jarhead.” There’s more of an
ensemble feel here than in “Moon," particularly on the train, but Farmiga
provides intelligence and empathy, and Jeffrey Wright is wonderfully itchy,
obsessive and askew as her boss.
Superficially, “Source Code” plays with some of the same themes as last month’s
“The Adjustment Bureau.” But it’s made with so much more skill and craft and
impact that it’s as if that other film were its made-for-TV doppelganger. This
is hair-raising, clever and winning entertainment. Even if his protagonists
aren’t entirely what they seem to be or think they are, Mr. Jones is, it’s
increasingly clear, the real thing.
Jones deserves special mention for his restrained filmmaking approach, a
classical focus on visual composition and unobtrusive camera movements, should
be applauded by moviegoers eager for a respite from the Michael Bay School of
Filmmaking (i.e., quick cuts, shaky cam, incoherent action choreography and
editing) and supported by studio executives eager to find the next big thing (as
far as filmmakers go) who will help maintain or replenish a Hollywood studio's
coffers.
|
