Has its wobbles but is engaging and entertaining right up to a slightly disappointing ending (SPOILERS)

Rating: Null/10 (24 July 2011)

Quite often concept films don't quite live up to their potential. Films that have a great concept at their core but yet cannot make that one idea into a fully functioning film. Setting aside a few stutters, Source Code is not one of those films as it draws the viewer in with threads that engage in the present and also the past. The plot is relatively simple – a soldier in a test programme gets to relive the final 8 minutes of someone else's life as many times as he wishes; these 8 minutes end with a terrorist attack on a train and, while he cannot do anything to save those on the train, he can use that time to identify the bomber so that he can be caught in the present.
Source Code is clever and yet also simple at the same time. Like a lot of good sci-fi it is build on ideas but doesn't forget the people. While on the train it manages to deliver tension and a palatable sense of a race against time as Stevens battles his confusion and desire to save the train, in theory the restricted place and time should get repetitive but it builds in enough in the present to inform and vary the past and make it slicker, more engaging and, of course, has less carrying to do in terms of the whole movie. The linkage to the present is good and the plot unfolds there well in a way that also got me to care about what was going on with the characters. Both aspects move along very well and it becomes clear that, while director Jones may seem to like a good idea, he also knows how to direct action.
The final ending seemed like a little bit of a cop-out. There was a sense of emotional buy-in for me in the train and I felt the final scene or two took away from it – it was not that I didn't get the idea that each jump into the source code doesn't just relive the reality, but actually allows for another reality to be created. I won't say it makes any sense, but I understand what the film did with it. Problem for me was not the understanding so much as it was the feeling; regardless of your interpretation of the ending, it ultimately seems to be there to give a positive ending in regards the main characters whereas a much stronger ending would have been his wish being fulfilled (death) and leave it at that. It did sour the movie for me a little bit and it felt like one of those endings that a test audience came up with (even though it isn't).
A large part of it working is Gyllenhaal. He is a great presence in this film and he made me interested in him in all the scenes, whether he was coming to terms with the reality of his situation, or racing around the train – he got his character and it made it easy for me to care. Outside of him the support cast are a little bit secondary but are still good. Monaghan, Farmiga, Wright are all solid and interact with him well, but Gyllenhaal is the star of the show here no doubt.
Source Code may have a few wobbles and appear to bottle it when it comes to delivering the logical but downbeat conclusion the film deserved, but it is still a very good film. The concept is well laid out and the details aren't allowed to bog the action down – action, which is complimented by the characters being good and thus getting me to buy into them and their story. It has room for improvement, but Source Code is still an engaging and enjoyable sci-fi that remembers that it is about people, not the science.