Source Code

 Man, I miss title credit sequences. Source Code, back from the halcyon days of 2011 (they were already rare back then) has a good one, with some lovely aerial shots of Chicago and environs, unorthodoxly-positioned credits, and an almost Lalo Schifrin-esque score.

 And then we're thrust into the life of Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhal). Or are we? It's quickly revealed that Colter, who acts as if he'd just woken up in a stranger's shoes, well... has just woken up in a stranger's shoes. One minute he was flying missions in Afghanistan, and now he's on a Chicago commuter train where a woman he doesn't know but clearly thinks she knows him (Michelle Monaghan) talks to him as if he was someone else.

 A quick visit to the bathroom and a glance at a mirror convinces Colter that he is in fact inhabiting someone else's body. Then the train blows up, and he finds himself in some sort of mechanized limbo...

 From there the mystery starts being unraveled, one revelation at a time. It turns out Colter is being sent back in time to the train by a shady army outfit to discover who set the bomb; Over and over and over again, reliving those final eight minutes, doing different things until he manages to figure out who it was. And while he's at it, he also needs to figure out what's up with his situation.

 The science is silly (of course quantum mechanics are invoked, along with some mumbly techno-babble,) extremely inconsistent, and kind of falls down as soon as you think about it. But it can be forgiven, because this rickety scaffolding supports a tight, pacey, satisfying mystery with some Hitchcockian suspense and some intriguing themes about duty and the demands a country might place on those in its service. Nothing too deep on any of the fronts, but the fact that it manages to tell a coherent, compelling story while juggling all of this is pretty impressive.

 Ben Ripley's turned in a smart script (well, except for the science) that does particularly well at making its characters credible under ridiculous circumstances. It's a little bit too Hollywood, especially when reaching what seems like a perfect ending, only to forge ahead and ruin it with an additional dollop of schmaltz. This really bothered me when I first saw it way back when, but I must be getting soft in my dotage because it resonated a bit more this time around; a bit too saccharine, but it feels earned. Gyllenhaal, and the script, do a great job at grounding us in the Captain's reality, and he, Monaghan, and Vera Farmiga (playing a sympathetic CO) deploy ridiculous amounts of charisma to good effect.

 Source Code was director Duncan Jones's follow-up to his sci-fi breakthrough Moon, back when he seemed poised to move to the big leagues; unfortunately he did make the move, but it was to direct the Warcraft movie, which kind of finished off his career. I liked that one despite its problems; can't and won't extend the same courtesy to Mute.

 These days he may or may not be working on Rogue Trooper, which sounds very exciting, but it also sounds dead in the water with radio silence over the last three years. We'll see; whatever he comes out with next, it should at least be worth watching.