Source Code starts off on a very promising note. There is an explosion on a train. 100 people are killed. The army manages to get hold of some of the victims’ “brains” (literally) and harness whatever memory imprints are available in those brains before the persistent electrical activity in the neural networks die so that the imprints can be digitized in a reproducible form later.
I think I owe you all an explanation. This preposterous suggestion is not mine. Let me try to explain the “science” behind this.
Apparently, according to Hollywood Science – some parts of the brain do have some electrical activity in play for some time even after the brain is fried in a bomb blast – till the investigators get those brains to a high security army research lab – where brilliant scientists latch on to those electrical neural circuits and salvage the last eight minutes of the memories. They do this on a number of those brains and construct the world as seen by the travelers in the train in the last eight minutes of their life. This information is digitized and stored in what they call “The Source Code”
Enter the hero, a Captain in the US Army pulled out from an Afghanistan against his knowledge. He is strapped to a seat in a ramshackle enclosure with only a television screen in front of him – where an Army operative is impatiently waiting for him to come to senses so that she can put him “into” the source code – as one of the passengers – so that he can figure out who planted the bomb and hence help the Army stop a potential nuclear holocaust right in the middle of Chicago!
The Captain makes several excursions into those last eight minutes and tries to figure out the culprit.
If I go on any further, I will be spoiling your experience of this movie. The science is atrocious but the movie is not! It is quite good actually provided you leave your brains (pun intended) outside the movie hall – for good reason.
The end leaves you aghast though. There’s this lingering question at the back of your mind – perhaps more than one question – in all probability a million questions which the director conveniently chooses ignore – because he himself has no clue what the answers are. That’s pardonable because Hollywood Science is a branch of science that takes the explanation only so far as to make it a good screenplay. It does not even attempt to close the loose ends or the gaping holes. That is the very nature of Hollywood Science.
The movie is slickly made; has a great pace; a lovely premise and a politically correct end. In case you expect some character in the movie to tell you how the stuff really works; what the consequences are, please note that this is not a documentary on quantum physics which by the way gets more than a mention in the movie. For your own good, pay no attention to those dialogues.
Source Code is a good watch and Michelle Monaghan is HOT. Jake Gyllenhaal needs no introduction. He lives the character is immensely believable and likable.
My rating: Pretty Good.
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