Jake Gyllenhall
The small ensemble cast of Source Code
works carefully through writer Ben Ripley's "wrinkle
in time" scenario and manages to keep audiences engaged
in the retelling of the last eight minutes of the doomed
train ride largely through the efforts of Jake Gyllenhall
who brings a comic edge to an increasingly desperate
role. The audience experiences every action sequence
through his eyes and comes to feel as trapped in another
man's body as the actor finds himself once he comes
to accept that he must keep reliving the devastating
train wreck unless he alone can stop it.
Michelle Monghan
Bringing the human heart into the a hardcore sci-fi
thriller is Michelle Monghan's performance as Christina
Warren, a lovely young woman who represents the promise
of the future for young Captain Stevens as he comes
to realize his mission is as much about saving Chicago
is it is giving his own life a happier ending with Christina.
As with any action-packed movie, much of the drama
depends upon the characters behind the scenes as they
reveal their own agendas and work to aid or thwart the
hero's progress. The puppet masters of Source
Code are Air Force Captain Coleen Goodwin (Vera
Farmiga) and the scientist behind the time travel device
Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright). Working together to manipulate
their ardent time traveler, they gradually reveal what
has transpired in the young Army helicopter pilot's
life that brought him into the project in the first
place.
Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright
The elements of scientific experimentation, of the shady
military industrial complex and the hidden agendas of
each of the movie's characters give Source Code
such emotional appeal. The audience comes to embrace
the twin plights of the doomed time traveler as much
in his current "real" life as a dutiful soldier as we
do in his desperate superhero role with the lovely Christina
and the passengers on the train. |
