A fine sci-fi thriller

Rating: 8/10 (31 July 2011)

Entertaining sci-fi thriller by Duncan Jones, whose debut film was the mind-bending Moon a couple of years ago. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a military man who is part of an experiment where he can enter the mind of a dead man for an eight minute span. He's made to do this by his superiors so he can scope for evidence in a crime, here the bombing of a train in Chicago. At first, Gyllenhaal is disoriented and does not understand his purpose. He becomes attached to a woman on the train (Michelle Monaghan), but, after those initial eight minutes, his superiors (Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright) inform him that everyone on that train has already died, that he cannot change that, and that his only purpose on this mission is to figure out who is responsible so that the authorities can prevent a second terrorist attack. He goes back and re-lives those same eight minutes - and then he does it again and again. Much like in Moon, there are some major weaknesses in the story. In particular, it sets up rules that it pretty much ignores as it nears the end. And I was never quite as attached to Gyllenhaal's character as I was to Rockwell's in the previous film (though I will complement Gyllenhaal on a fine performance). But I still found the film very gripping and breathlessly paced. The plot may remind some of the television show Quantum Leap, as it must have Jones and company: he casts Scott Bakula in the role of Gyllenhaal's father (who is only heard on the phone). It was even more similar, in my mind, to the underrated 2006 film Deja Vu, which I might slightly prefer to Source Code even though, God forbid, it was directed by Tony Scott.