Source Code manages to pull you into its story in the very first few opening scenes. The film, for most parts in the first half at least, is in a permanent continuum loop mode. An ex military captain is being sent into a train that exploded early that morning to try find out the id of the bomber.
Eight minutes in the train are constantly repeated over and over again, each time with a new layer of the mystery being unraveled. So far so good. It is post this, that the film slumps into mediocrity and belies its early promise.
Source Code is positioned as a sci-fi action thriller like the Matrix series or even the recent Inception. The film though is not a patch on either of them. While the first half hour is promisingly confusing, the film doesn't really build up to the suspense enough. The main plot, one would assume, would be finding the bomber and helping save lives. It instead digresses into a melodrama of human ethics vs national security, and that comes out very phony.
Jake, as the lead, is earnest but not enough to bring in a seething urgency to the part. He is too laid back for a man who doesn't know why and how he is in a cabin when he was supposed to be in Afghanistan. And the source Code it self, the fulcrum of the entire story, is never quite fully or convincingly explained.
Source Code could have been an edge of the seat action extravaganza. What it is though is a mildly engaging passable thriller. Watch it if you don't have anything better to do this weekend.
Share