It's like Murder on the Orient Express, but Jake Gyllenhaal's process of elimination is just beating the shit out of people. I hope you're taking notes, Hercule Poirot.

The technology is kind of shaky, but the concept in Source Code is strong and everything moves along briskly; this film predates the wave of multiverse/time loop movies that would hit a few years later, and keeps the focus squarely on the mental state of Gyllenhaal's Colter Stevens. The film definitely wants to show off the premise instead of the actual story - the bomber that Stevens is searching for is set up pretty early on without too many red herrings, and the consequences of failure happen entirely offscreen, so you don't get terribly invested in them. Still, all those loose wires are effectively shoved behind the screen as director Duncan Jones (son of David Bowie) establishes a sense of mystery and tension early on and keeps the story moving consistently. The explanations don't really hold up to scrutiny, but the point of the film isn't to listen to Jeffrey Wright explain some word salad about quantum mechanics.

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