Writer: Naseem Randhawa

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Watch this if you liked: “Groundhog Day ”, “The Time Machine”, "Memento"

Finally, an exciting mind-challenging feature is here since the exhilarating advent of "Inception" in 2010. Jake Gyllenhaal ("Love and Other Drugs") plays Captain Colter Stevens, a U.S. army helicopter pilot in Afghanistan who wakes up to find himself in the Source Code program. The secretive military project enables one to rummage through the final 8 minutes of a person's life, to gather information that is needed to capture terrorists and also to prevent future attacks. Thus Stevens' mission through the Source Code simulation is to search for the train bomber amongst the passengers of a Chicago bound train. As Stevens relives the train bombing over and over and falls in love with one of the female passengers named Christina (Michelle Monaghan), time starts running out for a much bigger catastrophe is about to hit the city of Chicago unless the train bomber is captured.

Like the train speeding towards Chicago, promising young English director Duncan Jones ("Moon"), delivers his second big screen sci-fi flick that paces with similar urgency and manages to remain gripping all through its 90 minutes or so. Written by a fairly new writer Ben Ripley ("Species: The Awakening"), the story doesn't try to keep its shocking revelations right at the end to buzz audiences as how most thrillers do, but gradually reveals minor details here and there as the story progresses just enough to keep audiences glued.

The plot is kept remarkable lean and straightforward unlike "Inception", as it doesn't make audiences think hard in order to decipher its suspenseful plot that's based on Quantum Physics. Science experts may criticize the film's dubious scientific elements relating to alternate realities that are hardly explained and conveniently overlooked, but if you're bent for movie with an creative original idea rather than being intent on relating it to realism, then just take the "Source Code" simulation as another "Inception" dream simulation that doesn't require its science to be logical for a good watch.

Despite the questionable science behind the Source Code simulation, its serves only a fraction as to what the film is really about. We learn about Stevens and his estranged relationship with his dad, as well as the feelings he develops for the train's female passenger, Christina. Jake Gyllenhaal as Stevens is great in the lead role as an army man on a mission. He's in every scene in the "Source Code", and his state of wide-eyed panicky confusion that's due to the simulation program, is reminiscent to Gyllenhaal's army role in 2005's "Jarhead", which he so convincingly managed to fit into, proving his versatility to switch back from then to now with the wide array of roles he played in between.

To go into more detail for "Source Code" would be to spoil it, and while many may or may not guess the twist, it's just something that allows a new level of drama to unfold. It works as a good sci-fi thriller as it offers a satisfying closure as long as you can move past some of its fictional scientific paradoxes.

Cinema Online, 05 April 2011