Director: Duncan Jones
Writer: Ben Ripley
Released: April 2011
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga, Jeffrey Wright
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I love time travel films! This is a brilliantly simple story combined with the mind-bending possibilities of time travel.
‘Source Code’ is a top-secret military experimental operation where injured pilot Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) is given the ability to repeatedly relive the final eight minutes of a man’s life. The man is Sean Fentress who dies in an explosion on a train.
Each time Stevens relives the final eight minutes of this man’s life, he is given the opportunity to seek out the person responsible for planting the bomb on the train in an attempt to stop it from ever happening.
But, time travel being the way it is, can he really stop it happening? Or will he only stop it happening in that alternate version of life.
(Watch Back to the Future if you need an explanation on this theory.)
The story line reminds me of the Tom Cruise film Edge of Tomorrow, where he is able to relive the same day over and over until he figures out the solution. Except, Source Code is a intelligently simple film (in other words, clearly had a far tighter budget). At it’s core, it’s basically three location and four characters. So smart! Maybe it could be developed into a stage play.
It’s intense and brilliantly written. I looked it up, apparently the guy who wrote it really struggled to get his script to see the light of day. The director hadn’t had much experience either, while the cast is star-studded.
Source Code is an easy-watch, and despite its action/sci-fi themes, is actually quite an emotional film where the main character contemplates death and family a lot.
Jodie’s rating: 7/10
NZ Film Freak 