Sometimes the prison is our own mind

Rating: 7/10 (6 December 2013)

This is a movie that is about how humanity desires to go back into the past to change one event so as to make life better for us all. A US pilot wakes up on a train in a body that is not his own and at first must come to grips with the double identity that he appears to be living. However this only lasts eight minutes because then the train explodes, and he awakens, again, in a dark room with voices asking him if he has found the bomber. It turns out that he is being sent back in time, using an invention just developed, so that he can live the last eight minutes of somebody's life, and during that time, attempt to uncover the truth behind a horrid tragedy.
As mentioned, this film subconsciously explores that desire we have to be able to change the past. While what is happening in the movie is allegedly unchangeable, buy unraveling the secrets the powers that be believe that they may be able to unlock clues so as to enable them to prevent an even greater tragedy in the future. The problem is that the guinea pig is clueless as to what is actually happening.
Another aspect is about control, and how we inadvertently give up our lives into the hands of the powers that be for their own malicious intent. Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) is that guinea pig, and I will not reveal too much about him so as not to destroy the movie, but we do know that he has his own wants and desires, but these have been taken away from him so that he might be able to serve his masters.
It is not necessarily the case that these masters of Coulter's are inherently bad, they are just domineering. It appears that Coulter had no choice in taking up the role that he has taken, but we do see two sides to his reality, one in which he is in prison, and another where he is free, but this freedom only lasts a short time until he is snatched back to his prison. Therefore, in another sense, this movie is a prison break movie, but on a different level. The prison that he is trapped in is the future, and the escape route that he has to take is into the past, however it is only the eight minutes, and the inevitable death that he must face at the end of those eight minutes that keeps him trapped.