Source Code
AMC Lowes 19th street East 6, April 18, 2011
Movie #24 for 2011
Like director DUNCAN JONES’ previous film, Moon, the less you know about Source Code the better. Although, where Moon had a strong character-driven story and lovely attention to detail, Source Code hasn’t much more to offer than its intriguing idea.
For those who require at least a glimmer of an idea what the film is about, JAKE GYLLENHAAL (Brothers) plays Captain Stevens, an army helicopter pilot who wakes up on a train in someone else’s body. He is, it seems, part of an operation to find a bomb planted somewhere on the train. As Setvens discovers what’s going on around him, so do we. Lucky, then, that Gyllenhaal puts in such a good performance, eh?
VERA FARMIGA (Up in the Air) also does an excellent job, but that’s where characterizations stops and the other actors are left to founder about. MICHELLE MONAGHAN (Gone Baby Gone, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) does very little with even less and the usually reliable JEFFREY WRIGHT (Casino Royale, Broken Flowers) overplays Dr Rutledge like he’s in a completely different film.
The film is ambitious, which I like, but it’s also flawed. The intriguing idea should allow for some subtlety of approach, but this is bludgeoned out of the way in favor of caricature and swelling strings. There is always an uneasy tension between dropping enough hints to make a reveal convincing (a la Moon or The Usual Suspects) and telegraphing it from four hundred yards. By the end, the film is a little revealed-out, I think.
Which is not to say I didn’t like it - while I wasn’t looking this turned into one of those reviews that just talks about what I didn’t like about a perfectly fine film. I really do like that decent films are made out of interesting and new ideas and, even if they aren’t perfect, there’s plenty in there to like.
