Source Code is the second Duncan Jones film I've seen, and I couldn't help but make comparisons to his directorial debut, Moon. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you. Moon is in my top three favorite SF films of all time (a list rounded out by Blade Runner and Alien).
Source Code feels like Moon in some ways - both focus on a desperate, lost protagonist; both deal with questions of reality and unreality; both feature an unattainable(?) woman as the driving force motivating the male character; both have a character that first seems like an adversary but becomes an ally (GERTY and Goodwin); both extrapolate about the future ramifications of advancing technologies and the problematic nature of those who will OWN those technologies.
But the mood of these two films is very different. Source Code is like Moon sped up - bigger, louder, faster. Moon is quiet and laborious, slowly building tension through silence and desolation.
Source Code, right from the start, is jolting. As Colter Stevens first wakes up on the train - confused, alarmed, panicking - we are swept into his fear. Jake Gyllenhaal is excellent in this role - an emotionally and physically demanding one, no doubt. Every inch of his performance is real and tense and honest. I'd be hard-pressed to pick a favorite character portrayal between Sam Bell and Colter Stevens. Both are men haunted by their own deaths and by the possibility of re-birth - maybe it isn't death that Sam and Colter fear, but immortal life as yet another tool, used by governments or corporations and disposed of when necessary.
If Moon takes on crass corporatism, Source Code is a diatribe about the dangers of military leadership without ethics and oversight - a world in which the soldier, both alive and dead, is given no choice but to serve and no way out. I feel like, in some ways, this is referencing the glut of soldier and veteran suicides seen in recent years. At the very least, I feel like Source Code can be read as an indictment of those who treat both the mind and body of soldiers as tools and nothing more - Colter is plugged into a machine, suspended between life and death (against his will), and forced to experience the same hell over and over. This is called "duty" and "sacrifice" when it is truly torture. And while he succeeds in discovering the bomber's identity and providing the intel needed to stop a second attack, we must wonder, at what cost?
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