Source Code Review by KDV: Contains Spoilers!

Source Code, directed by Duncan Jones, was an outstanding movie. From the moment the film started, to the gut-wrenching twist at the end, you, as a member of the audience, are spell bound by this captivating film experience. With an interesting view on the capabilities of the human mind when combined with the ingenuity of science and the freedom of imagination, Source Code was clever, interesting, and kept you thinking up until the movie’s closing.

The story opens with a young man (Jake Gyllenhaal) on a train, sitting across from a lovely young woman (Michelle Monaghan) as she tells him that she has decided to take his advice. Everything seems calm, simple, and rather ordinary. But there was a major issue. Colter Stevens, the young man, did not know where he was, what was going on, where the train was headed, what the advice was he had given this woman, or the who the woman in herself was. He looks at the mirror in the bathroom of the train and sees another man’s face looking back at him. Knowing that nobody would believe him if he explained, he begins to ask questions and observe his surroundings, assuming that he was amidst a military simulation, trying to discover what exactly this predicament was he had gotten himself into, when something unexpected takes place—the train explodes in a fiery cloud of smoke and ash. And at that moment, just after death has enveloped his body, he awakens.

After regaining consciousness, he comes to the conclusion that he is trapped in a capsule in some indistinct place with his mind hooked up to a genius piece of technology, a newly invented military weapon called “Source Code”. His only connection to the outside world is a small screen through which he communicates with a woman known to him only as “Goodwin” (Vera Farmiga). He soon discovers that it is his job to discover where the bomb had been hidden on the train that had been heading to Chicago, and who the planter of the bomb was. He also discovers that he will be continuously sent to that train to live the last eight minutes of those people’s lives until his mission is accomplished. The real truth about who he is and where he is even more alarming than even he believes.

I loved this film. It’s one of those movies where I could simply go on and on about, discussing the many facets of its creativity. If I did that, then the experience would be spoiled. I suppose that if I had to compare it to like movies, as far as genre, I would include it with films such as Inception or maybe even sucker Punch. It is terribly fascinating, exciting, and worth the time. Watch it. You’ll be amazed.