An answer to…the Source Code. Nah, I don’t think that I can do that. Heck, even the director was not able to do some justice to that question. How do you define a rail that starts on a track, moves on it the whole time, but ends up on a completely different track? Not that the movie is all about it, but it does focus on trains a lot. What is the matter with train crashes? First, it was Unstoppable and then they even created a Source code for it.
The story basically revolves around a handicapped US soldier who is sent on a mission to find the mastermind behind a train bombing. He is to do so by being in the mind of a person who was on the train when it was bombed. While residing in that person’s mind, Capt. Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) comes to discover some secrets as to why he was sent here and the underlying purpose of trying to stop the train and ultimately, a master plot. On the train, he comes to know Christina who was probably a good friend of the person whose mind Stevens currently controls, and falls for her in the process. Stevens tries to do all this and more, but he only has eight minutes on the train before the bomb blows off. Capt. Goodwin (Vega Farmiga) is Stevens’ mentor throughout this process and guides him on the specifics of mission.
The plot of the movie was quite good up to a certain point, when the writer thought of divulging from his own source code. Furthermore, the mediocre acting by the lead actors adds little to the already weak storyline. What did Jake Gyllenhaal think before signing up for this movie? Did he really think that time travel was his field of expertise? Ok, I get it, he did some justice to Prince of Persia, but it was after all an adapted screenplay. If it hadn’t been for the game, they wouldn’t have been able to derive such good out of it. But let’s not start on Prince of Persia here, shall we? In fact, I did like that movie a lot.
Besides the lead actor, Michelle Monaghan was also not that good in the movie. The childish, innocent facial expressions didn’t help a lot. Trying to act calm and indifferent does not add much to the role. Besides, what more can you do from a role which you portray for fragments of 8-minutes in the movie? Vega Farmiga tries to do her best in consoling the lonely soldier, and succeeds in doing some justice to her role. Her delivery represents that of a person having some pent-up emotions inside her. According to me, some more screen time and storyline should have been accorded to her role.
A tip for all movie-goers: watch The Butterfly Effect instead. It has a lot better storyline as well as acting and at least, follows its own central idea rather than believing in a convoluted form of it. If you are willing to kill some time with a run of the mill time-travel movie, then this may be the one for you. And if you are a fan of falling in love with a person whom you meet for fragments of 8-minutes, then you should definitely watch this one. Jake, if you are reading this, its time you left the time dimension.
Cheers,
Faheem
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