Source Code..

Kewl, the missus and I got the chance to see Source Code a few days back. In the theatre, without the seal pup and the brat, it was blissful. No running out of the theatre every 15 minutes with a screaming brat (the seal pup), big, spacious lazyboys to sit on and snooze if the movie was too boring. Which it wasn't. The opening sequence was one of those scenes which you remember, cutting from a commuter train running to aerial shots of a large city. With music rising in a crescendo. Made you sit up. The movie opens with Jake Gyllenhal, waking up with a start, he is in a train, in obvious confusion. A lady helps him, he searches around and then 8 mins later, the train blows up. And he is in a capsule – man, is he getting screwed. He doesn't know where he is. Gyllenhal is good, looking lost – the problem with him in Prince of Persia – Sands of Time is that his lost look didn't help. Here he fits in ejjactly – the man for the role. Couldn't have done better. His annoyance at not knowing what happened mirrors yours – you are hooked for the moment atleast. Then after a few thingies, they send him back. Now comes the interesting part, which is why the movie is referred to as a mix of Groundhog Day with Murder on the Orient – it is a whodunit on the train, and Capt Colter Stevens (Jake G) lives that 8 mins again and again and again. Well, atleast there are 5 or 6 different versions of the 8 mins, all of which ratchet the tension. Till the midway point you are hooked, keenly following the movie as it unravels – between Jake G, Michelle Monaghan (the nice lady on the train, who ends up liking who Jake is), Vera Farmiga all give the movie the necessary edge – Farmiga is excellent as Capt Goodwin, the controller of Jake G's character. The story as it unfolds is that there has been a bomb on the commuter train, Jake G is in the Source Code, he is SC-1 – Source Code allows you to connect to past, not to change the past but change the future, the philosophy and the logic was usual Hollywood big movie and had enough neurons and electromagnetic waves and stuff thrown in to make sound real enough. In any case, Jake G is told to find the bomber as he has a larger bomb which can cause more damage and this is the Groundhog Day part of it – Jake G can only have those 8 mins.

 

And that is where the movie starts to unravel slowly – they don't know how to end it. I mean the situation demanded at the very least a Chuck Norris, if not that, a Jack Baeur or Rajni, all they had was poor Jake G. So they made it finish in the most unrealistic manner. I mean we are suckers, we will believe the gobbleddy-gook about the electromagnetism of the brain and all that crap, but hey, you cant possibly convince me that someone invented time travel and multi universe thingy in the same movie, I mean that's like two movies J. Anyways, what till around the 75% point was a good engrossing movie, starts to come off after that. The direction and the editing is good, Jake G and Michelle M on the train are good and Vera Farmiga off the train and controlling Jake G pulls of a very plausible performance as someone under significant pressure. There is this self important doctor dude, who kinda invents source code, who is a wee bit irritating, but that is his character, so lets go with it. With a small cast, limited locations (the train, the base, the capsule and the CCR station is all that we have), and a tight story and screenplay, the movie plays out plausibly and interestingly, till somewhere someone realised that the playing time had exceeded 90 mins and we need to like close the movie and we rush into a haphazard, not thought out ending, which so sucks from a movie of this intelligence. Again, after Yudham Sei, another movie, from a different land, but one with as interesting a premise which screws up in the need to provide closure to the movie, in a manner which is not befitting the movie. But nevertheless, the movie is intelligent for a summer blockbuster and is well crafted and made, the repeated train sequences don't feel like a drag, there is character definition of the characters on the train in a 8 min period that they are all there. And that adds up – anyways, I liked the movie, the missus also approved, so well, atleast I didn't get the look I got after Kingdom of Heaven. So I guess it should score an A on my scale (it did get a B from avclub, which means it is fairly decent).

 

Got a  new laptop – so hopefully will update this blog more often for the 3.5 readers I have.