Source Code

June 30, 2012 - A few years ago, there was a TV show (in my opinion, an underappreciated one) called Seven Days. Jonathan LaPaglia played an astronaut of sorts who worked for a secret government program. When a really bad thing happened, he got sent back in time seven days and it was his mission to keep that bad thing from happening.

Source Code has a similar premise, but it's different. In this 2011 film, a secret government program uses the brain power of a severely wounded Army captain (Jake Gyllenhaal) to try to figure out who is responsible for a deadly train bombing in Chicago and to, hopefully, prevent the bomber from committing another terrorist act. The program utilizes sophisticated technology to have the captain's mind inhabit the body of a person on the train for the eight minutes leading up to the explosion. The captain's mind is sent back over and over, and each time he gets closer to finding the bad guy.

Overall review: ** I want to give this movie three stars because most of it is really good. But, in the final 10 minutes or so, the rules that the film has established suddenly change. I felt cheated, as though the filmmakers went for the "happy ending" even though, by their own premise, a happy ending shouldn't have been possible.