Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) awakens one morning on a commuter train and finds himself in the middle of a conversation with a woman (Michelle Monaghan) he does not know. The strange thing is that she is acting like she knows him very well, yet she keeps calling him Sean. Colter catches a reflection of what should be himself in the window, but he sees someone else’s face instead. Shortly after this discovery a bomb explodes and Colter comes to in what appears to be some kind of capsule.

Within a few seconds of regaining consciousness, he is instructed by Carol Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) via a video screen to recall what he saw on the commuter train. At first he is confused and does not understand his surroundings. After a few test questions and another trip on the commuter train, Colter thinks he is doing simulation training. He eventually comes to understand that he is part of a very real mission called Beleaguered Castle. The purpose of this mission is to identify the commuter train bomber in order to prevent a suspected second attack. The catch is that Colter only has eight minutes to complete his task and he will be sent back repeatedly until he figures it out. He inevitably keeps reliving the explosion and it starts to take a toll on him.

Each time he goes back, Colter is more determined to catch the bomber and save all the passengers, especially Christina (Monaghan). Goodwin attempts to explain to Colter that he cannot change the past and that what he is seeing is a glimpse of something that already happened. On top of trying to find the bomber, Colter also tries to figure out his own personal details as the last thing he remembers is that he was flying a helicopter mission in Iraq. Each trip back provides more information on the bomber and gets him one step closer to discovering the truth about his own life.

The best way to explain Source Code is to say that it is basically The Matrix meets Groundhog Day with maybe a little Inception wrapped around it. It’s a great idea in theory, but the movie does not really hold true to the rules it established for itself. The concept of the movie does spark quite a good conversation though. So I can’t really divulge my issues with the film without spoiling the movie and giving away every last detail. What I can say is that the romantic element really wasn’t necessary and the identity of the bomber is too obvious. I wish I could rate the movie higher than 2.5 stars as I am a big of fan of all the actors in the film, but I went to the theater pretty excited and left feeling rather disappointed.