Sci-fi 'Groundhog Day' lacks verisimilitude

Rating: 4/10 (24 June 2012)

The concept where a particular past juncture in time is re-visited in order to effect a change in future circumstances, was marvelously handled in the brilliant comedy-fantasy, 'Groundhog Day'. 'Source Code' utilizes a similar concept, but here it should basically be subsumed under the genre of Sci-fi Thriller. Unlike 'Groundhog Day', which repeatedly brings a time-tripping Bill Murray back to the past by sleight of hand, 'Source Code' provides a pseudo-scientific rationale, which proves in the end to be decidedly derivative of other time travel tales we've seen before.
Our protagonist, former Army helicopter pilot, Colter Stevens, now severely injured and in a comatose state, is being used as part of a secret US Army project dubbed 'Source Code', to uncover the identity of an individual who bombed a Chicago commuter train, earlier that day. The creator of the project, Dr. Rutledge, and his assistant, Air Force Captain Goodwin, repeatedly keep sending Stevens back eight minutes prior to the bombing inside an experimental device which resembles a space capsule, in order to find out who planted the bomb so they can stop him from detonating an even more destructive dirty bomb in downtown Chicago, which the bomber has promised to do an hour later.
Stevens learns that he's unable to change events in the future reality which Goodwin and Rutledge are a part of, and is only able to be an observer. The Source Code enables Stevens to enter the body of one of the now deceased victims, Sean Fentress, and move about on the train in a parallel universe. While the basic events in each alternate time line are the same (the bomber always plants the bomb in the same place), due to Stevens/Fentress acting differently in each time line, the exact sequence of events is changed. The concept derives from 'Groundhog Day', where the core events end up as variations on a theme. The interactive aspect of the protagonist's abilities, can also be likened to the Star Trek holodeck, where a user is able to interact with a series of images which are mere projections of reality.
One can argue with all the pseudo-scientific explanations but the films' scenarists are basically asking the audience to suspend one's disbelief when it comes to the main premise. For some this is a big problem, but I found other areas of the film to take issue with. One of screenwriter Ben Ripley's big quandaries is how to develop Stevens' character arc in eight minute segments. You'll recall that Bill Murray's 'Phil' character in 'Groundhog Day' was a narcissist who needed to learn an important life's lesson about being a nice guy. He has a whole day (repeated multiple times) to transform himself. Here, we learn virtually nothing about Fentress as his back story is a cypher. When Stevens becomes Fentress, Ripley has him gradually warming up to the film's love interest, Christina Warren, after he acts gruffly toward her when Stevens makes his first 'time trip'. But Stevens/Fentress acts badly at first because Stevens is disoriented not because he has a character defect. So the transformation seems unnecessary and forced since Steven's only real goal is to prevent the bomber from causing further havoc.
Equally less charming are the assorted characters Stevens must deal with on the train and the methods he employs to find out whether they might be the particular villain he's looking for. Again, a comparison to 'Groundhog Day' is instructive. All of the characters Phil interacts with in the Groundhog Day universe, are utterly quirky and charming. Here, they're stereotypical--either obnoxious (bad comedian) or ineffectual (computer geek). What's more, Ripley lacks the imagination to come up with a series of interesting variants. All Stevens/Fentress ends up doing is awkwardly confronting each one of his suspects by ripping the bags they're carrying and spilling the contents on the ground and getting into some kind of physical or verbal confrontation.
Perhaps the biggest clue that 'Source Code' lacks gravitas, is in its choice of a convincing antagonist. Heaven forbid that Mr. Ripley would attempt to create a bad guy rooted in today's headlines. Instead of perhaps an Al Qaeda sympathizer, we're presented with a Mad Bomber of the 1950s dressed up as a modern day disaffected techie. When both the bad guys and the good guys in your movie don't seem very real, the stakes aren't very high and hence the tension on the 'suspense' meter, has got to be very low!
Finally, there's the whole question of a so-called 'twist ending' that doesn't seem to be very surprising at all. Remember, according to the rules of the alternate time line, changing events in a parallel universe, cannot change anything in the present real world. So when Stevens sends the text message to Goodwin that he's stopped the bomber and that the Source Code experiment worked, and Goodwin and Rutledge aren't even aware that any of those events have transpired, that's not the same world we experienced at the beginning of the film. Rather, it's an alternate universe where the 'happy ending' of Sean and Christina walking off into the sunset, is a reality. One other thing that did bother a lot of other people who have posted on the internet, is what happened to Sean once Stevens takes over his consciousness? I guess he's left screaming, inside the mirror!
Back in the real world, the reality of the train bombing remains unchanged. We do wonder, after all those time jumps, did Stevens have enough time to actually communicate the information about the bomber to Rutledge and Goodwin? Couldn't the bomber have easily driven to downtown Chicago and set off his dirty bomb given how much time Stevens was taking with his jumps and inside the capsule?
Source Code looks and feels more like a movie made exclusively for the Syfy channel. It keeps your interest in a basic way but certainly doesn't deserve all the accolades heaped upon it to date.