CAIRO - Once again there isn't much to write about so I'm relying on summertime releases to share enlightening insights into the cinematic world, in this case the film Source Code (2011). It's not the easiest movie to digest, given that it's about parallel worlds and time-travel, where fighter pilot Colter Stevens is sent back over and over again to discover the identity of a mad bomber, who threatens a passenger train and the whole city of Chicago. To make things even more inexplicable, he's sent back in the body of schoolteacher Sean Fentress (Frédérick de Grandpré). I'm a sci-fi buff myself but even I didn't like the ‘science' of the story!Dream team The best thing to say about Source Code is that it's extremely well cast. Although Jake Gyllenhaal wouldn't exactly be my first choice for the hero (Stevens), he does have that young, enthusiastic lay-yourself-unnecessarily-down-for-your-country look, and he's good at civilian/military roles. His soon-to-be girlfriend in the movie, fellow train passenger Christina Warren, is perfectly played by all-American, tall, slender and typically chirpy Michelle Monaghan. Her upturned nose and broad smile are really cute, but her solid build and dark brown hair give her a very grounded, trusting look. Even better cast is Vera Farmiga, who plays military secretary Colleen Goodwin. She is Colter's only link to his original timeframe. Tall and broad shouldered, she has a very decisive professional look, perfect for military, police and doctor type roles. At the same time she looks independent, something you can see in her pale blue unblinking eyes, which helps you accept that she can disobey orders to do the (morally) right thing, as dedicated and by the book as she is. Furthermore, her sensuous lips gives her a maternal sympathetic look, again making it easy to understand why she'd help out a fellow soldier in the war against (domestic) terror! The bossman, Dr Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright), really looks the part of the eager beaver bureaucrat. He's the guy, who can't create or teach and compensates by being an administrator, exemplified by his crutch and plastered hairstyle – you see him combing his little tuft of hair too thoroughly in preparation for a meeting on expanding his source code project. Even the less significant characters are well devised, whether the passengers on the train – grumpy, self-centered Americans, or the military staff, bent-over desk jockeys. The casting, characterisation and humanity of it all are such a joy to behold that you almost don't care about the action, excitement, engaging plot and special effects – they're all there and help a lot, too! Quantum offspring On the strictly political level the train and its passengers are meant to encapsulate American society with all its foibles. You have Christina Warren trying to become an independent person and dumping her indifferent boyfriend, not caring whether she makes it to her job or not. She describes the train conductor as a ‘dictator', and we have Dr Rutledge forcing Colter to sacrifice his life again and again. Colter is told by Dr Rutledge to use whatever means necessary to find the terrorist, of course including torture, and there's the Muslim (Cas Anvar) guy whom Colter wrongly suspects. The real culprit (Michael Arden) is as white as they come, while the person whose body Colter borrows is a ‘history' teacher; hence the need to learn from past mistakes. There's also a refreshing religious subplot. You notice a scene involving Christina and Colter as he moves back and forth through time, only to see the same scene again towards the end of the movie, reawakening your faith in fate, or as Christina says: “Everything's going to be fine.” Knowing that you have only so much time left helps you realise what's most important in life - relationships, whether the budding love between Christina and Colter or the estranged relationship between Colter and his father who opposed him going off to fight in Afghanistan. Interestingly enough, the actor playing Colter's father is the star of Quantum Leap, Scott Bakula. This was the classic TV series about a scientist going backwards in time and taking the place of people to right past wrongs. The trouble is they don't do it in a convincing way in Source Code. So, once again, you have Hollywood's backward motion in the current phase. You can even see this in the cinematography: instead of TV-style close-ups, which are an eyesore in movie theatres, you have old-style perspective shots with people in miniature. I'm all for this, mind you, but it's equally an eyesore to use high-resolution digital cameras with too much colour and too much CGI. There's the obvious benefit of time-travel: correcting Hollywood's own many past mistakes – cinematographic, political and otherwise!
