There have been several movies and TV shows involving the concepts of time travel and/or alternate realities. From Quantum Leap and Back to the Future, to recent features like X-Men: Days of Future Past, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Everything Everywhere All at Once, filmmakers have constantly grappled with fascinating characters who go back in time to change an element of the past or prevent a catastrophe to secure the future.
The 2011 sci-fi action thriller Source Code stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Captain Colter Stevens, a U.S. Army pilot who suddenly wakes up on a commuter train headed to Chicago. Stevens learns that he is repeatedly being sent to the same time period of eight minutes before the train explodes due to a high-tech bomb. While the film became a critical and box-office hit, it is an underrated feature due to the familiar elements concerning time travel. However, the film's plot is more complex and intriguing than expected.
Source Code Is Inspired By Other Films Based On Time and Crime
One of the most obvious inspirations for Source Code is the comedy Groundhog Day, where Bill Murray's weatherman relives the same day over and over again. Gyllenhaal's Captain Stevens has to relive an eight-minute time loop on a train to encounter the identity of the bomber and the location of the explosive device. This premise is reminiscent of Tony Scott's sci-fi action thriller Déjà Vu with Denzel Washington as a special agent who travels back to the past to prevent a terrorist attack.
In Déjà Vu, Denzel's character falls in love with a woman he's trying to save. In Source Code, Stevens grows to like Christina Warren (Michelle Monaghan), a female passenger on the train who develops chemistry with him even though she doesn't understand his situation. On the train, Stevens is also under a different identity: a school teacher named Sean Fentress, meaning that everyone on the train sees him as Sean, but spectators will almost always view him as Stevens. This concept of dual identity may remind viewers of features like John Woo's Face/Off and John Frankenheimer's Seconds.
Another key inspiration for Source Code is Murder on the Orient Express (Sidney Lumet's 1974 feature before Kenneth Branagh's 2017 version). While Stevens doesn't exactly match the charm and finesse of detective Hercule Poirot (although that's due to Stevens' perplexing dilemma), he does have charisma towards Christina and has intriguing interactions with passengers on the train. Just like Poirot searching for a killer on a train in Agatha Christie's story, Stevens has to analyze each person on the commuter train to figure out who is responsible for planting the bomb.
Edge of Tomorrow (which was released three years after Source Code) is another sci-fi action feature that tackles a fearful hero (played by Tom Cruise) who constantly goes back to the same time loop to figure out how to win a war against gigantic aliens. Similar to Cruise's protagonist in Doug Liman's film, Gyllenhaal's Stevens in Source Code also repeatedly dies and returns to the same time span (like starting over in a video game). While both movies are high-tech, Edge of Tomorrow appears more bombastic and set on a grand scale, while Source Code is more of a subtle mystery crime thriller (which may explain why Source Code was somewhat underrated, and Gyllenhaal is an under-the-radar movie star compared to Tom Cruise's massive star appeal).
Source Code's Cast Holds The Complex Story Together
Along with Gyllenhaal and Monaghan, other cast members include Vera Farmiga (known for The Departed and Up in the Air) as Colleen Goodwin, another army captain who breaks the news to Stevens that he is actually on life support after fighting in battle. Goodwin and her boss, Dr. Rutledge (Westworld star Jeffrey Wright) are controlling his body and repeatedly sending him back to the eight-minute time loop to find the train bomber, so they can prevent another attack. Generally, it's all about a heroic protagonist trying to stop or prevent a disaster, but Stevens is going back in time to an attack that already happened (the train exploded, killing all passengers).
Gyllenhaal is one of the best actors of his generation because he constantly tackles challenging roles in complex thrillers (Donnie Darko, Prisoners, Nightcrawler, Nocturnal Animals). As Stevens, he transforms from a deeply fearful soldier to a skillful hero who uses his expertise from the army to make the most out of a seemingly impossible task. Monaghan's role as Christine may seem like a simple love interest for the male protagonist (like in Mission: Impossible III), but she is also a compassionate woman who tries to understand Stevens (even though she sees Sean from her viewpoint) and manages to get through to him in an affectionate way through their insightful conversations as they learn a lot about each other.
Farmiga is focused and precise as Goodwin, a commanding officer who seems to care more about the mission, but is committed to helping Stevens (especially since she understands his horrific experiences in warfare). Jeffrey Wright's Dr. Rutledge is a double-edged sword because he is an elite scientist who created the "Source Code" program to investigate attacks from the past to stop future incidents, but at the same time, he is using dying soldiers like Stevens to complete his work, making him ingenious and impersonal. Rutledge may have been the role that inspired Wright's character, the technically proficient Arnold Weber in the HBO series Westworld.
Source Code is one of the best films involving time travel because it skillfully combines sci-fi and crime (like Tom Cruise's other mind-bending thriller Minority Report), along with some well-choreographed action sequences. This is a ride that audiences should definitely look back on.