SOURCE CODE Is Fun, But Has A Major Glitch

SOURCE CODE (Dir. Duncan Jones, 2011)

So Jake Gyllenhaall is jarred into consciousness on a Chicago commuter train sitting across from Michelle Monaghan who’s in mid conversation mode.

She thinks he’s somebody else, and from his reflection in the train’s restroom mirror – he is somebody else.

While still scrambling to figure out what’s going on, a massive explosion destroys the train and kills him, her, and hundreds of people. Then Gyllenhaall wakes up again, but this time in a dark chamber in some sort of laboratory with Vera Farmiga in a dark blue military suit on a video monitor.

Farmiga explains to Gylennhaall that he is on a mission to inhabit a specific passenger’s mind the last 8 minutes before the train is blown up in order to identify the bomber and thwart future attacks.

Therefore Gyllenhaall is thrust into the same scene again multiple times, GROUNDHOG DAY style.

This is a juicy premise that comes equipped with some tasty twists. Gyllenhaall, who is revealed to be a army helicopter pilot, is a smart guy so it’s fun to watch him try to figure out the suspects and manipulate the situation, all the while flirting with the playful Monaghan.

As Farmiga’s superior, a stodgy Jeffrey Wright is sternly looking over her shoulder spouting out the necessary exposition about the source code that they are utilizing: “It’s not time travel; it’s time reassignment.”

As the second film of director Duncan Jones (whose first movie MOON is seriously worth checking out), SOURCE CODE is stylishly paced, elaborately assembled, and is filled with stunning visuals, but it has one fatal flaw that is really difficult for me to wrap my brain around.

Thing is, to reveal that flaw would be committing a major Spoiler! crime, so I’ll just say that this film is close to 80 maybe 85% of a superb surreal action thriller.

It's one of Gyllenhaall's most appealing performances displaying the right amount of tension and humility. By this point he doesn't have to prove that he can carry a movie, but it's still cool seeing him again give it the "old college try."

Farmiga shows that even with her lips prudishly pursed, wearing a drab uniform, and with her hair pulled back into a bun is still collassally cute. Her performance ain't bad either - she conveys a restrained sense of urgency throughout.

Monaghan doesn't have much of a character despite being the love interest, but she makes the most of it. Wright as the handicapped "source code" scientist, is all sinister in his cold calculations in a predictable "heavy" manner, but although he's mainly a device - he's not a narrative problem like the one that keeps me from being 100% on board with this movie.

So much of this film is so good that I definitely recommend it, but that one particular plot hole (that I'm dying to go off on, again - Spoiler! city) just keeps bugging me.

I know I over-think these things, and that most folks will see it as a slick serviceable popcorn picture and go about their day, but SOURCE CODE is so close to absolute brilliance in its meticulousness that I can't help but zeroing in the one element that almost derails the entire endeavor.

However, maybe getting wrapped up in that one glitch in the system is just as much fun as getting wrapped up in the rest of it.

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Son Of Space Oddity

MOON (Dir. Duncan Jones, 2009)


The directorial debut of the British born Duncan Jones takes place almost entirely on the surface of the moon with the sparest of casts and the eeriest of vibes. It makes a certain sci-fi sense for Jones since he's the son (originally named "Zowie Bowie") of pop superstar David Bowie and grew up with heavy up close and personal exposure to his father's otherworldly output such as the classic albums "Space Oddity" and "Ziggy Stardust", along with his films THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH and LABYRINTH. So, with that unique upbringing in mind, we are given Sam Rockwell as a Lunar Industries employee, alone and very lonely, on a 3 year assignment to extract Helium-3. His only companion at the lunar base Sarang is a robot named Gerty - voiced by Kevin Spacey.

Except for a few blurry video messages on the monitors of his wife back home (Dominique McElligott) and a couple of corporate guys calling the shots, it's the Sam Rockwell show. He's burnt out as Hell; schlepping around the base in a daze donning shades to shield from the blinding glare around him as he counts down the days to when he can go home. He sees odd flickers of images of himself on the monitors and the fleeting vision of a woman in a yellow dress, but brushes these off as weary hallucinations until crashing his rover. When he awakes he finds there is another man on the base - another Sam Rockwell to be exact.

Because there are only so many pieces that make up MOON, it would be wrong to give any more away than that - from just that simple description I bet one could imagine story threads involving clones and delusion; dammit I'm still giving things away. It must be noted that while the Bowie background can't be ignored, this is more spiritually rooted to the seminal sci fi of the 70's and 80's - Jones cites SILENT RUNNING, ALIEN, OUTLAND, and, of course, the obvious connection: 2001 as major influences. These were the antithesis of the commerciality of STAR WARS; films that were about probing the depths of character's alienation instead of space laser fights and cute robots.

MOON can be a slow dry ride, but it's one that lingers darkly though thoughtfully. Rockwell's performance never falters especially in scenes when he's interacting with himself; he's as on as any time in his career. Rockwell's no stranger to sci fi either from his roles in GALAXY QUEST and HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY so he is at home here. It was nice to see models and matte paintings instead of CGI, though I bet that choice was budgetary rather than artistic. There's a low key yet absorbingly spooky mood to MOON that is still with me the next day, while the parts that didn't quite add up (like the unsatisfying ending) are fading. As it still processes, right now I can only concede that it's a fine film debut as well as a promising chip off the Bowie block.

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