'Source Code' is an intriguing film

Film: Source Code (U/A)
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga, Jeffrey Wright, Russell Peters
Director: Duncan Jones
Rating: ***

Thanks to the wonders of “quantum mechanics and parabolic calculus,” army helicopter pilot Colter Stevens (Gyllenhaal), who was last seen in operation in Afghanistan, is able to enter the eight-second-long memory of a railway commuter, Sean Fentress, who is long dead in a train that was bombed on its way to Chicago (The first in a presumed series of attacks).

In a mysterious chamber with an army official, Colleen Goodwin, who communicates with him through her computer, Stevens, being used in an intelligence-gathering mission, finds himself in a compartment of the doomed train being repeatedly subjected to the limited series of events leading up to the explosion.

Stevens enters this parallel reality with himself, as Fentress, sitting opposite a woman named Christina Warren (Monaghan). Stevens, isn’t however, entirely conscious of how he came to be in the program and, while making recurring trips into the alternate reality, must ascertain a few other things apart from who the culprit behind the blast is.

Given the premise, one would expect, when the smoke of obfuscation blows over, that the viewer, for all his or her patience, expect to be rewarded with something other than an enigma. Not so. Therein, for some, lies the frustration that prompts the recollection and exposure of “flaws” in the inevitable discussion outside in the cinema. Unless, of course, one saw the film alone, for which reason the internet exists.

This reviewer didn’t find the movie to be cleverly (or not) disguised vacuousness with pile-upon-pile of red herrings, but a film which rewards you for the several leaps of faith it begs from its viewers. Of course, if the plot is too much to stomach, one can’t find much to complain about the acting. Gyllenhaal gives a fine performance as the high-strung but resourceful protagonist. Monaghan who, unsettlingly, does not suspect anything is up with the new and improved Fentress, plays out her crucial role as the unlikely source of equilibrium for Stevens well. Farmiga who is under the source code’s creator Dr Rutledge (Wright) who possesses a single-minded zeal towards his project, is torn between her duty and her sympathy towards the soldier's plight. 

One can understand why the film would appear overcooked yet underdeveloped with the whodunnit bit, one of the film's nuances, which could definitely have been tauter and more gripping with Stevens having to grope around for clues in every repeated excursion into "reassigned time". But then again that aspect, perhaps, was just one piece of the puzzle all along.

Still, for its immersive plot and great acting, Source Code, a source of intrigue, is definitely worth a watch.