Source Code



"Dr. Rutledge: You cannot alter this reality while inside the Source Code.

Colter: I’m asking you to have the decency to let me try."

A 2011 techno-thriller/action film directed by Duncan Jones starring Jake Gyllenhaal. Has quite a few similarities with Quantum Leap (including a voice cameo by Scott Bakula).

Captain Colter Stevens (Gyllenhaal) is a decorated airman helicopter pilot who wakes up in the body of an unknown man inside a train in Chicago, where he meets a woman named Christina (Michelle Monaghan). But before he can understand what's going on, a bomb explodes on the train.

Waking up once again, this time in a capsule in an unknown location, Colter is greeted by a military woman named Colleen Goodwin (Vera Farmiga), who informs Colter that he is inside the Source Code, a program that allows him to take over the body of another in the last eight minutes of that person's life. What he experienced on the train was merely a simulation. Earlier that day, a bomb already detonated and destroyed a train in Chicago, killing everyone aboard, including Christina, whom he has developed feelings for, and the original owner of Colter’s assumed identity within the Source Code, a man named Sean Fentress. Colter's mission is to use the simulation to retroactively discover the location of the bomb on the train and trace it to the bomber so that a second detonation can be prevented.

Not to be confused with an uncompiled computer program.

"Colter: Hey, my name's Derek Frost."
 * Actor Allusion: Jake Gyllenhaal at one point says "Everything's going to be all right."
 * Also this is not the first time he has had to deal with
 * Lest we forget that Scott Bakula is once again involved with a time travel project (although briefly).
 * Adam Westing: Comedian Rusell Peters basically plays an expy of himself.
 * All Just a Dream: Or rather, a virtual simulation.
 * All the Myriad Ways: Inadvertently played straight by Rutledge. Avoided by the ending.
 * Almost Dead Guy:.
 * Alternate Timeline
 * Always Save the Girl: Colter really wants to, but there's the small matter of Christina already being dead.
 * Arc Words: "Everything will be all right."
 * Beauty Is Never Tarnished: When we see
 * Becoming the Mask: A rather heartwarming variation.
 * Bittersweet Ending: It leans more on the happy side.
 * Brand X: The train company is called Chicago Commuter Rail, or CCR, instead of Metra. Still Metra's blue and red engines, though.
 * Cannot Spit It Out: The Source Code officials might get Colter's cooperation much sooner if they just spilt the beans about his circumstances from the get go, instead of dodging his most basic questions.
 * Casting Gag / Actor Allusion: Colter's dad should know what he's going through in the film; he's done it too.
 * Russell Peters basically plays a fictionalized version of himself, particularly noticeable during
 * Chekhov's Gun: The older woman's bag on the upper level.
 * One of the passengers drops his wallet, which is returned to him by another passenger.
 * Death Is Cheap: Averted. Colter doesn't actually die at the end of every run through, but he experiences the horror of it every time, and the more he does it, the more he comes to see just how precious and fleeting life is.
 * The Dog Was the Mastermind:
 * Earn Your Happy Ending: Hell Yeah.
 * Flash Back: The Source Code program effectively serves as an interactive one. There's also a few of Colter's.
 * Flash Forward:
 * Flash Sideways:.
 * Genius Cripple
 * Groundhog Day Loop
 * Half the Man He Used To Be:, and it's not a pretty sight.
 * The Hero Dies: Inverted.
 * Hey It's That Voice: Colter's father is played by none other than Scott Bakula. As the film was tagged by its creators as Groundhog Day meets Quantum Leap, this is probably not coincidental.
 * I Cannot Self-Terminate:
 * Just Train Wrong
 * Trains do not have guns on board, as quoted by Metra's own commuter newsletter On the Bi Level, If conductors wanted to wield guns they would have applied for a different kind of blue uniform..
 * The so called 'conductor's compartment' is actually an engineer cab for remotely controlling the locomotive when the train is moving in that direction, and is portrayed on the wrong end of the train car (the engineer must be able to see the track ahead). Even more so from the outside view of the cars since it shows the windshields for the cab on the right end of the car, but the side windows of the cab on the wrong end as well. Not to mention this was a Chicago bound train, so the compartment would not have been empty, there would have been an engineer on one side of the compartment, operating the train.
 * Actually METRA owns a rather large proportion of cab control cars and frequently uses them mid-train as coaches. In exterior views of the train he is in fact riding in a mid-train cab car. It is also entirely logical that such closed cabs would be used as storage space for the train crew and may be referred to as a conductor's compartment.
 * Not all cars on the train have headlights/taillights/red stripes.
 * Gallery cars of the type depicted do not have a bridge over the isle, they have stairs on either side of the isle to reach their respective sides of the mezzanine.
 * Man in The Machine
 * Meaningful Echo: A few, but most notably, "What would you do if you knew you had less than a minute to live?"
 * Meaningful Name: Ruthless Rutledge is ruthless.
 * Mind Screw: And then some.
 * Mind Wipe:
 * The Mirror Shows Your True Self: Colter is Sean. Probably a visual form of Translation Convention since Colter is not looking at himself all the time, he percieves himself (And we see him) as Colter. Is only when he looks in the mirror that he (And thus the audience) realizes what he actually looks like.
 * Mission Control: Goodwin, and Rutledge to a lesser extent.
 * Mistaken for Evidence:
 * Mistaken for Terrorist: When Colter first suspects
 * Perma Stubble: Colter out stubbles Sean, his own reflection.
 * Powered By a Forsaken Child:
 * Precision F-Strike: And how.
 * Product Placement: Apparently they have Dunkin' Donuts shops on trains now. Also, Colter has time to stare at the Bing homepage for what seems like an eternity before searching for anything.
 * Protagonist-Centered Morality: Nobody seems to care that Colter
 * To expand:
 * It could be worse with Sean trapped in some sort of Being John Malkovich state.
 * Quantum Mechanics Can Do Anything
 * "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Delivered in the first person no less.
 * To expand:
 * It could be worse with Sean trapped in some sort of Being John Malkovich state.
 * Quantum Mechanics Can Do Anything
 * "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Delivered in the first person no less.


 * Science Is Bad: Played with. While the program can't undo past events, it can be used to influence future ones and prevent subsequent attacks and save millions of lives. However, there is the matter of Source Code's creator, Dr. Rutledge,.
 * Then again,
 * Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Doubly subverted.
 * Shallow Love Interest: Christina. We never even find out what she works with or how she knows Sean.
 * Shout Out: Colter's father is played by Scott Bakula.
 * The radio DJ's spiel about the weather near the end, besides the numbers being different (it's a bit nippier out, apparently) is the same as that near the beginning of Ferris Buellers Day Off, which also takes place in Chicago.
 * Christina's ringtone is "I am the one and only", the same as Sam Bell's alarm clock in Moon.
 * Terrorists Without a Cause: The motivation for the bombing is not really important to the plot. The bomber apparently acted alone,  When Stevens does get a chance to ask "why", he gets some answer about rebuilding from the rubble, but no specifics or clear ideology. His line "This world is Hell" may suggest some sort of Apocalpyse-minded religious fundamentalism, but it's unclear.
 * Time Bomb: Played with. The device is merely an explosive rigged to blow when it receives a signal, but Colter only has eight recurring minutes to discover where it is and who put it there, thanks to how the Source Code operates. He finds it pretty quickly; it takes most of the film to uncover the bomber's identity.
 * Time Travel Romance
 * Title Drop
 * To Be Lawful or Good:
 * Together in Death:
 * Trauma Induced Amnesia: Colter begins the film having no idea why he's on a train with a woman who claims to know him under another name. Later, when he "wakes up" inside of the capsule, he doesn't recognize Capt. Goodwin or anybody involved with the Source Code Project.
 * Not necessarily trauma induced.
 * Trailers Always Lie: The trailers made it seem like some romantic dramedy through time and space movie like The Lake House...
 * "Well Done, Son" Guy: Colter, big time. Rutledge is not above exploiting this to trigger his Heroic Resolve.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist: Dr. Rutledge.
 * It also seems that Dr Rutledge, who doesn't interact with Colter, doesn't fully realise that he can still think and have feelings - after all, . If Colter didn't have emotions, then mind-wiping Colter so he'll be ready for his next mission would be morre like clearing the cache on a browser. However, it's obvious to Goodwin that Colter does indeed have feelings and desires.
 * Derek Frost might also count.
 * Wham Line: Christina telling "Sean" that his friend Colter.
 * What Happened to The Mouse?: What happened to Sean after  Also, what happens to  Goodwin? For that matter,   Presumably
 * It's been confirmed by Word of God that.
 * What You Are in The Dark: Even after the aspect of the Source Code is explained to him, Colter still tries to do good to strangers that he'll never be able to interact with ever again.
 * The Windy City
 * X Meets Y: Quantum Leap meets Groundhog Day.
 * Also Quantum Leap meets Lola Rennt, which is essentially same as the above.
 * Next meets Deja Vu meets Inception.
 * Or Murder On the Orient Express if you prefer.
 * One of the actors described it as Groundhog Day meets Speed.
 * Duncan Jones has mentioned Twelve Monkeys as an influence as well.
 * Might be a bit of a stretch but: Being John Malkovich meets 24 meets
 * Being John Malkovich for the whole inhabiting Sean's body concept and the moral concepts therein, 24 for the obvious ticking time bomb, and . Also both Dr. Rutledge, the designer of the Source Code program, : both want to save the world, Rutledge by creating a weapon against terrorists
 * Assassin's Creed meets Daybreak.
 * Groundhog Day meets.
 * You Already Changed the Past: Basically what Colter tells Goodwin at the end of the film.
 * You Cannot Grasp the True Form:
 * You Can't Fight Fate: Played with.
 * You Already Changed the Past: Basically what Colter tells Goodwin at the end of the film.
 * You Cannot Grasp the True Form:
 * You Can't Fight Fate: Played with.