{"id":5044,"date":"2011-05-29T12:51:10","date_gmt":"2011-05-29T02:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=5044"},"modified":"2011-06-13T23:06:54","modified_gmt":"2011-06-13T13:06:54","slug":"source-code","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=5044","title":{"rendered":"Source Code"},"content":{"rendered":"

A year ago in the blockbuster movie season of 2010, Christopher Nolan released Inception<\/em> to much acclaim and commercial success.\u00a0 There was a good discussion<\/a> held on The FAT website review page about the film’s merits and whether we felt it lived up to the hype.\u00a0 A common critique of the film was that it was too clever by half.\u00a0 So much time was spent on the exposition laying out the rules in the multi-tiered dream states that there was very little about the characters themselves that we learnt.\u00a0 Who are these people?\u00a0 What makes them tick?<\/p>\n

A year after Inception<\/em>‘s release and we now have another blockbuster sci-fi film that explores the idea of alternate realities.\u00a0 In Source Code<\/em>, Colter Stevens is a U.S military soldier who wakes up in the body of a passenger onboard a train that is rigged with a deadly explosive.\u00a0 In eight minutes, the bomb explodes.\u00a0 Stevens fails to stop it and dies.\u00a0 Or so you would expect.<\/p>\n

Instead he awakens inside a testing chamber.\u00a0 He meets a woman named Goodwin over a video feed who tasks him with stopping the bomb and finding the culprit.\u00a0 He gets re-sent into the eight minute train sequence to have another go.\u00a0 And another.\u00a0 And another.\u00a0 Stevens makes a hash of the mission over and over while he gets his bearings.\u00a0 Should I trust Goodwin?\u00a0 Should I focus on stopping the terrorist first or finding the bomb?\u00a0 What is my real identity and how did I get into this situation?\u00a0 Hey, that girl sitting across from me seems nice…<\/em><\/p>\n

I really enjoyed Duncan Jone’s debut film Moon<\/a> two years ago and pegged him as a director to watch out for.\u00a0 With Source Code<\/em>, he has once again struck gold.\u00a0 I believe this film emphatically addresses the major shortcoming of Inception<\/em>.\u00a0 It is a film with character.\u00a0 Jake Gyllenhaal, who I havent really found interesting since Donnie Darko<\/em> a decade ago, turns in a great performance as Colter Stevens.\u00a0 He behaves in a believable and relatable manner for someone who finds themselves stuck in this bizarre timeloop.\u00a0 After he gets his head around his environment and settles in for the challenge, we come to find Stevens is someone who is funny, smart and determined.\u00a0 He is an easy protagonist to cheer for.<\/p>\n

The supporting cast is excellent too.\u00a0 I particularly liked the introduction of the eccentric scientist Dr Rutledge, who wants to see Stevens succeed so he can further his own career ambitions.\u00a0 Jeffrey Wright is an excellent character actor.\u00a0 I thought he looked vaguely familiar to me when he was on the screen but I couldn’t place the movie or the role.\u00a0 I looked him up on IMDB when I got home.\u00a0 The last film I saw him in he was playing Colin Powell.<\/p>\n

Jones really works the Groundhog Day<\/em> concept in resourceful fashion.\u00a0 From this single eight minute passage, he is able to create a compelling action thriller but somewhat unexpectedly, he is also able to craft a rather enjoyable love story too.\u00a0 And then at the end of it all, when the story all comes together and the loose ends are tied, he pulls back the curtain to reveal how Stevens came to be in this situation and it reminded me of a rather dark Roald Dahl short story William and Mary<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Source Code<\/em> is Inception<\/em> but with a lot more heart.\u00a0 It once again highlights Duncan Jones as a smart and savvy director who now was two really enjoyable sci-fi films to his name.\u00a0 He clearly is able to draw great performances from his cast and he has a knack for telling a good story.\u00a0 I eagerly look forward to seeing what he comes up with next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jakes On A Train<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[912,914,913],"class_list":["post-5044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","tag-duncan-jones","tag-jake-gyllenhaal","tag-source-code"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5044"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5245,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5044\/revisions\/5245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}