Clif-Notes: Source Code

Source Code is about a man, Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal), who wakes up in the body of another man. Turns out her is part of the Source Code. A program that can let somebody live the last eight minutes of another person's life. A bomb has gone off on a Chicago train as a warning of worse things to come. It is up to Stevens to find the bomb and the bomber and stop the coming attacks. Every time he goes back, he must try to find more pieces to the puzzle in order to do this.

Full disclosure, there are spoilers ahead so stop reading if you don't want to ruin the movie.

This was actually a pretty decent movie. Good acting, an ok script (I'll discuss this later...) and an overall well made movie. The full idea is that the brain can still function after death for a while and it also is able to carry with it the last eight minutes of what happened. Gyllenhall is a perfect match for the dead guy and he is to find all the clues. No matter what he does though, he cannot change the past (even though the scientist who made the Source Code tells him it's not time travel as much as parallel reality jumping). But here's the kicker that makes me scratch my head at some of the plot.
Turns out Gyllenhall is dead all along. They are keeping what's left of his brain alive in order to do this. That mixed with the fact that no matter how many times he fails, he just keeps coming back and being put back in kinda make in pointless. He doesn't even have a "villain" against him except time. And then he stops the bomb (because there was a chance that the movie ended with all of Chicago blowing up...). But then his mind convinces Vera Farmiga to put him in one last time to try and save everyone on the train. She obliges. As he save the train, and the people on board we are left with a freeze frame of everyone laughing and him kissing Michelle Monaghan and Farmiga being arresting for then killing his brain. But then time starts back up for him on the train. He has apparently created another reality where the train didn't explode so he is free to live again. In the body of another dude. Who never actually died so he just kinda took over his body...? Believe it or not, I did like this movie. Maybe I shouldn't be thinking this much into it but that ending didn't sit well with me.
I would recommend seeing this one but it can wait until dvd. Or until I'm nice enough to let you in to see it for free.