Source Code review
Wait a minute where do i begin from? ah yes in the spirit of the movie let me start from 5 years back. Tony Scott’s “DEJA VU” released into our theaters starring his most preferred actor Denzel Washington (a total of 5 films starting with Crimson Tide). Deja Vu begins with a bomb explosion on a ferry carrying the crew of the USS Nimitz, killing both the sailors and their families. An experimental FBI surveillance unit is pressed into action who use a space folding technology to directly look back 4 days into the past to assist the investigation in identifying the bomber.
Now let’s fast forward to 2011 and we have Duncan Jone’s “SOURCE CODE”. The premise is very similar to Deja Vu, the movie begins with an explosion killing over 100 passengers travelling in a commuter train to Chicago and the protagonist has to assume the identity of another man and relive the last 8 mins prior to the explosion to investigate and identify the bomber.
The first 30 mins keeps you interested with the scenes playing in an indefinite loop where the actors keep repeating the same actions and lines till the explosion kills them all. There is nothing much to write about the acting in the movie, however Jake Gyllenhaal our protagonist did a decent job in the role of an American Army helicopter pilot. While Michelle Monaghan just had to repeat the same dialog “I took your advice blah blah” every time Jake wakes up on the train in the body of an unknown man.
Denzel Washington in Deja Vu while investigating the bombing finds a connection between a murder of a woman on the same day of the bombing. He falls in love eventually and builds a mental picture of the dead girl while searching her apartment. So in the end he travels back in time to save her from being murdered by the bomber while putting his own life at risk.
In Source Code Jake falls for Michelle from the few lines of dialog they exchange before Jake set’s off to catch the bomber before the bomb goes off again within 8 mins. It beats me why Jake would go risking his life to save her from the explosion. I can understand Denzel Washington trying to save the beautiful Paula Patton but why Michelle? why Jake why? falling for Heath Ledger in Broke Back Mountain was understandable, but I doubt any man would risk his life for Michelle.
The biggest Goof-up in Source code has to be when the bomber must blow up the train exactly when a freight train passes by. But the bomber gets off at a station just before the explosion. He clearly can not see the trains passing each other from where he is standing!
Source Code is a mash-up of both Deja Vu and it’s equally brilliant counterpart “GROUNDHOG DAY” where Bill Murray finds himself living the same day over and over again. The Writer of Source Code Ben Ripley is hands down “The Talented Mr. Ripley” a 1999 movie starring Matt Damon as Tom Ripley whose talents include impressions and forgery. Ben clearly ripped off Deja Vu and Ground Hog day to script Source Code without any major changes in the premise. It’s a shame that critics like Roger Ebert and Rajeev Masand failed to notice the similarity and to top it off they gave a generous rating of 3.5/5.
I prefer the director Duncan Jones to script his own stories like he had done previously for his debut movie “MOON” starring Sam Rockwell which was 100% original and genuine.Of course Jones is no Tony Scott but he is a decent director in his own right. you can follow him here on twitter http://twitter.com/#!/ManMadeMoon
Watch Source Code if you haven’t seen Deja Vu before, trust me you will enjoy watching it and have a good laugh about my review later. However i felt the movie was dragging itself to the finish and a lot predictive. Yes i know i just wasted an hour trying to convince my friends not to watch Source Code but sadly they will go watch it anyway. I think i am going to beat myself up now.
Rating: 2/5
P.S Sadly even a part of Deja Vu is borrowed from a 1944 movie “Laura” where a man falls in love with a dead woman.
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