Source Code

Published Mar 16 2011, 14:31 GMT  |  By Simon Reynolds

Zipping along at a speed to match the doomed commuter train aboard which most of its story takes place, Source Code is a tense, thrilling and unexpectedly emotional science fiction thriller from Moon director Duncan Jones. Those fearing Jones would fall victim to the difficult second feature syndrome need not worry because the Brit director's assured hand behind the camera transforms a loopy premise into a gripping genre piece. Think Groundhog Day re-engineered as a high-concept Hollywood action flick.

The story begins with Jake Gyllenhaal's soldier Colter Stevens jolting awake on a train bound for Chicago. He's sat opposite Christina (Michelle Monaghan), a colleague who recognises him, and a group of regular passengers making their way into work. Soon, an explosion tears through the carriage and he awakens in an isolation chamber with a video link to Vera Farmiga's military officer Carol Goodwin and a shady scientist played by Jeffrey Wright. Stevens is being forced to relive the last eight minutes of a man's life in order to find the bomber that destroyed his train and prevent a second, larger attack on Chicago. This isn't time travel, says Wright, more like "time-reassignment". Plugged into the programme, Stevens gets to visit an alternate reality over and over until his mission is complete.

Source Code doesn't have the straight-arrow seriousness of Christopher Nolan's similarly-minded brain-twister Inception, instead using humour to alleviate some of the tension and offer a self-aware nudge and wink to its own bonkers logic. Moon fans will appreciate the reappearance of Chesney Hawkes's 'One And Only' (it gets more than one outing), while Gyllenhaal's leap and tumble onto a platform at speed is pure Grand Theft Auto. In fact, Stevens's plight - an endless cycle of death and rebirth - is reminiscent of the frantic battles to get to the next level on a video game. Jones, an avid gamer, has seemingly harnessed these console influences to come up with a bracing 90 minutes of first-class entertainment.

The film also marries existential ideas of death and fate with a moving romance between its beleaguered protagonist and Christina. Even in this warped reality, are they destined to be together? Stevens's quest to figure out how he went from fighting in Afghanistan to inhabiting the body of a stranger leads him to reach out to his father and forge a bond with Farmiga's source code operator. The latter relationship is key in the finale as the protagonist makes a heartfelt plea to Goodwin to let him commit one last act of heroism (the soldier's instinct kicking in). In the hands of someone like Michael Bay it could have been a horribly jingoistic scene, but Jones values his characters more than whizz-bang CGI trickery. This, along with compelling performances from Gyllenhaal et al, is what makes Source Code a winner.