Source Code

Captain Colter Stevens is a decorated soldier, a skillful fighter and trained operative. He's piloted F-16 jets in combat missions and received numerous commendations. However, his normal life is turned upside down when he finds himself in the body of Sean Fentress, a young chef from Iowa who's a total stranger to Colter. The situation is even more bizarre as Colter is transported back in time to a crowded Chicago-bound train that's about to be bombed. As Colter attempts to wrap his head around his new surroundings and the unfamiliar body he's inhabiting, he quickly realizes that he's inside a mysterious tech device that allows him to access memories of Sean's past, relive specific events, and even attempt to alter the course of his own past. The device, an experimental technology developed by the military and a powerful energy corporation called Goodspeed, employs a principle called quantum entanglement to access the quantum state of an object or in this case, a human consciousness. With this unique technology at his disposal, Colter, now operating in the body of Sean, is placed back in time to relive the same 8 minutes and 42 seconds each time he dies in the explosion, with the aim of gathering crucial information that can help identify the bomber. This time-loop capability allows him to experiment and try different approaches on multiple attempts, gradually piecing together the puzzle and learning more about the people on the train. Colter's mission is led by the voice of a brilliant scientist named Ruth Stevens, a woman he believes he knows and loves, and Captain Goodwin, a seasoned military officer. As Colter navigates through each time-loop, he begins to question the intentions of the people leading this operation and the utilization of the technology. He keeps observing and interacting with the passengers, trying to get closer to the bomber and unravel the mystery. Each attempt brings Colter closer to the bomber's identity, allowing him to uncover more clues and connections – an impulsive young man named Derek, the nervous train conductor, a frail elderly woman who offers Sean (and thus, Colter) insights into human nature and social interactions on a busy train, the friendly local commuter, Peter, and a free-spirited artist, who we only catch a glimpse of but seem highly significant. These encounters alter the overall context and possibilities each time, slowly improving Colter's ability to predict what will occur – thanks to the interaction from his hosts. However, Colter starts questioning the morality, or the potential, of this technology, developed at the expense of countless test subjects' innocent lives and minds being treated as 'tools' for use as soldiers in a new dimension. Colter believes that his time-traveling concept might be misused as a way of murder or the stealing of data that is highly sensitive. As he gets closer to the target date and date after date Colter tries to share the importance of not throwing moral principles and emotions aside while living many lives and memories borrowed from people he only started with barely touching in the journey so far, since the person with him in the loop may know just enough at that time about someone who would commit something unthinkable resulting in death to someone innocent over something relatively meaningless to that time if their plans were to happen - leading to multiple, stressful, stressful, and hopeless attempts. Ultimately, Colter ends up learning more than he ever wanted to know, and is shown that manipulating events is an intricate, treacherous game, especially if one runs against pre-arranged outcomes involving vast human structures. As Colter and anyone else also participating at his end of things - Goodwin and Ruth (for a different perspective respectively on Colter's abilities at their end), it becomes clear there may be far-reaching consequences to their time-travel with its end, or simply, getting to the bottom and handling this crime to simply move on and move ahead is very unchallenged at this present point. The climax of the movie portrays a moving adventure that changes how events unfolded earlier, and plays into who is bad, who has gone that bad and would walk off an overcrowded, hectic, confused commuter rail, all while attempting to unravel any truth amidst difficult realizations in desperate self-reflection, and bringing this perilous incident to its eventual denouement – the truth.