Source Code: Movie Review

by Rick Grant
This time warp thriller involves a scientific initiative to exploit the 8 minutes the brain is still functioning after clinical death. A medical scientist, Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright) has invented a way to use a subject’s brain function, after death, to take him back 8 minutes in time to find a terrorist who has blown up a train full of commuters near Chicago.
Enter an Army helicopter pilot Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) who is in civilian clothes riding on a train, sitting across from a beautiful woman, Christina Warren (Michelle Monaghan) who seems to know him, and like him.
Strangely, he is occupying another man’s body. The last thing he remembers was being in combat in Afghanistan and his helicopter was hit by ground fire. Of course, he’s freaked out by the abrupt change in his environment, never mind being in another man’s body.
Stevens roams around the train with a sense of impending doom, but he can’t figure out what that may be. Suddenly the train blows up and he and Christina are vaporized.
Then Stevens wakes up in a strange capsule, strapped to an aircraft styled seat. A woman, Captain Colleen Goodwin is asking him questions on a screen in front of him. Thus begins Steven’s new mission as a time traveler. He must locate the bomber of the train and take him out to prevent him from igniting a dirty bomb which uses radioactive debris to contaminate a city sized region.
The story plays with the idea of parallel realities and how Stevens can perhaps change those realities by bending time and space.
During the run-time viewers are asking many questions about what the heck is going on, but as the story unfolds, those questions are mostly answered. Still, the movie keeps viewers on the edge of their seats as Stevens travels through different realities. Fans of the TV show “Fringe” will enjoy this intricately woven scenario.
Vera Farmiga excels as Captain Goodwin, who must appease Stevens by dancing around the real truth to keep his concentrating on his mission. If he is successful, Dr. Rutledge’s source code time travel would be a monumental breakthrough and win him a big fat military contract.