andy’s review published on Letterboxd:
Colter: “Christina, what would you do if you knew you had less than a minute to live?”
Christina: “I’d make those seconds count.”
a time loop movie that sticks to the script, the concept is good, but left me looking for a bit more. it gives jake gyllenhaal 8 minutes to find a train bomber and unravel the subsequent terrorist attack. with each reset he peels back a layer of the mystery and gets closer to making a discovery for his mission that he has no control over. it’s claustrophobic, in both the pod he resides and even the train within the source code, mostly stuck here and having to operate within it. anything outside of it isn’t real and just wasted precious time in the real world.
it has some emotional depth in the ethics of using the source code, essentially expendable dead soldiers continuing their service for their country and that sacrifice and how far one will go. it questions the identity of a person who is participating in it. it sprinkles in enough thrill with heart warming and doesn’t overstay. but i wouldn’t say it’s anything out of the ordinary or exceptional. big fan of the ending though and how he set the moment the best he could knowing it would very well be his last.
