A really good sci-fi thriller

Rating: 9/10 (6 April 2011)

Despite only making two films, Duncan Jones is seen as one of the great new directors around, for good reason. Having made the subtle, intelligence sci-fi film Moon that only had one actor throughout he has moved onto making a bigger budget, but still complex film.
Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhall), a army helicopter pilot awakes on a train and unaware about what is going on. A young woman, Christina (Michelle Monaghan) who speaks to him as her friend, Shaun. After the train explores Stevens discovers that the train was blown up by a bomb and the people who run the Source Code project, Captain Collen Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) and Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright), tell him he can go back to last eight minutes of a person's live and that he has to discover who bombed the train before a dirty bomb goes off in Chicago. But every time he goes back to the event Stevens becomes closer to Christina and Stevens goes on to his own personal mission to save her and discover what happened to him in Afghanistan.
The big risk for Source Code was that it would end up being like Vantage Point, a film repeating the same event over and over again and becoming a very boring film. Luckily Jones did not fall into this trap and he made a film that is intense mystery, events that change and made sure that Source Code was filled with twists and turns. Many elements were similar to Moon in how the film unfounded and moral arguments it created. Whilst Moon avoided CGI as much as possible, Jones was more comfortable using special effects, whether for the explosion or Stevens entering the Source Code. When Stevens entered the Source Code it reminded me of the Assassin's Code with the white and blue imagines and it has a similar concept of going back in time using another person's body discovering something to change the present. The science behind Source Code, that everyone who dies lives an electric imprint of eight minutes so therefore a person's conscious can be put into it is ridiculous, but Jones made the film so well that you can easily ignore it.
The acting is excellent in Source Code, Jones does have a eye for casting and he brought in a cast of indie darlings. Of course Gyllenhall is a great actor and had great chemistry with Monaghan; both were confidence in their roles. Monaghan is the innocent eyes on everything and despite having to play the same events over and over she is able make out she is confused by why her friend's behaviour has changed. I personally love Farmiga for her roles in The Departed and Up in the Air and again she is able to mix both a strong confidence and someone is more nicer and compassionate. Her character starts off as someone is cold and hard but slowly soften as her character develops. Wright is very much in an antagonist role and is very solid playing the director of the Source Code operation.
Source Code is a film that has a lot of ideas behind it, particularly about fate and destiny and if someone change the future. Stevens knows the events that coming but has to take matters into his own hands. Stevens not just wants to stop the dirty bomb but he was to save the passengers on the train and particular Christina. Stevens wants his own free will and make his own choices. There is also the moral argument about whether should want to live on after death, whether it would have negative affects or whether death is better then just being a pawn. (SPOILER ALERT) Source Code also rises a time paradox when Stevens in his final journey into the Source Code he is able to stop the bombing and the dirty bomb and therefore never needed to back in time in the first part. There is also a moral problem that Stevens survives in Shaun's body and lives, but happened to Shaun's consciousness. It still debate to what happened to John Malkovich in Being John Malkovich. (SPOILER OVER).
I do wish that Jones was a little harder when it came to violence and language and gone for the full R/15 rating, but that is mainly because I had to sit need a couple of annoying school kids. One of them said "I'm confused" and I thought to myself "because you are an idiot".
Source Code is a more mainstream effort compared to Moon, but it is just as clever. Hopefully we will get to see even more from Jones.