On the Baffling Science of Source Code

In 2009 Duncan Jones wrote and directed the low budget science fiction drama, Moon. With Sam Rockwell in the lead role, Moon was an intelligent, character driven film that asked challenging questions and felt the more creative for the lack of money.

For his next feature, Jones has adapted a script by Ben Ripley about the trial of a new technology that allows the government to access the last eight minutes of a dead body’s brain. This is Source Code.

Like Moon, Source Code is a science fiction (action) drama. With Jake Gyllenhaal in the lead this is an (fairly) intelligent, (mostly) character driven film that raises confusing questions and with an estimated budget of $32 million has not had to struggle to realise its vision. Source Code follows quickly on the heels of The Adjustment Bureau (2011), another action/drama/romance dealing with the existential. Both of these films were probably rushed into production following the incredible success of Inception (2010). Yet neither matches the narrative intelligence of Inception. Source Code follows Gyllenhaal’s character as he returns time again to a train and the last eight minutes of a man’s life before the train explodes due to terrorism. Gyllenhaal’s character looks and sounds like the man whose body he is occupying, but the brain is his. After eight minutes he is transported back to a strange cockpit like setting where he takes orders over a webcam. His mission is to find the bomber and report his findings over the webcam so they can prevent another expected bombing, which is about to happen in real time. Every time he returns to the train, he becomes more familiar with the setting, gets closer to finding the bomber and falls in love with a female passenger. Yet, we are told, this is not time travelling.

Source Code is a fun, entertaining, well-acted film and for the first 70 minutes it is a thrilling film. However, Source Code cannot escape the baffling science it tries so hard to explain. Rather than except the fact that it is confusing, it tries to do what Inception did so well and integrate it into the story with clarity. But, it simply does not make sense and the end confuses even further and leaves not challenging questions about the value of life, but annoying questions about certain plot details.