Out of Whack!

Rating: 5/10 (21 May 2015)

Source Code (2011): Dir: Duncan Jones / Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga, Jeffrey Wright, Michael Arden: Total mind blow that takes its life and death matters to unbelievable heights. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a deceased military soldier who finds himself thrown into a government experiment where he resumes the body of someone aboard a train that will explode via bomb in eight minutes. He has no idea what is happening or how he got there but he is instructed by a couple officials via screen that he needs to find the bomber. That means repeated visits and blown to bits but each return he stumbles upon something new to clue in a suspect. Director Duncan Jones delivers a great credits opening with great camera panning but the screenplay plays like an action version of Groundhog Day. Gyllenhaal is a capable actor and he does a convicting job juggling the crime as well as the lives of those on board. We learn that his character is deceased, so that leaves the nitwit happy ending where he ends up in the body of someone else, to be tacky and a complete shove in the spiritual sense. Michelle Monaghan is pleasant as the girlfriend who questions him and is caught up in the repeated investigation. Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright play Gyllenhaal's contacts who communicate via screen. Both have different views with regards to this experiment and both actors elevate the material from potential formula. Michael Arden is featured in a cameo as the bomber whom Gyllenhaal must seek out and put a stop to. Well made entertainment but pointless exercise in time travel. Score: 5 / 10