(NOTE: This is NOT an April Fools article, and is intended with all honesty and sincerity)

March is typically a month of movie releases that represent what either didn’t test screen well, or what the studio’s didn’t really know what to do with. This past March proving no exception to the rule. It has been a long cold month of less than great, if not sometimes truly ridiculous films. So it is rather nice to start April off with a breath of cinematic fresh air, and Source Code is just that. Solid story telling, a compelling plot, and a great cast round Source Code up into the total package of a smart action thriller.

Jake Gyllenhaall plays Colter Stevens, a soldier that can not really remember how he ended up in his current assignment; That being some strange new experimental technology that allows a person to occupy the mind, body, and life of another person for their last 8 minutes of existence. There has been a terrorist attack on a train in Chicago. Stevens must endlessly jump back into the body of his subject over and over again until he can figure out the puzzle of who bombed the train in hope of stopping a second, more devastating attack. Time is of the essence, and trial and error are frustratingly the only way Stevens can figure the puzzle out. The end of each eight minute session ending with him being blown up along with the train and everyone on board.

Source Code is director Duncan Jones’s follow up project to his much acclaimed (and totally award robbed) film Moon. Like Moon, Source Code is wonderfully claustrophobic in its sense of confusion and isolation on the part of the protagonist Stevens. Whether in the pod he is in while himself and communicating to Vera Farmiga’s character via video com, or trapped on the doomed train 8 minutes at a time the sense of limitation is palpable. The pace in which the story unveils itself has a wonderful sense of build to it. As in the case of the best Sci-Fi films, it leaves the vast bulk of your questions and suspicions answered but leaves you just enough to mentally wander on when the credits roll. After the past month’s worth of movies, it was nice to leave the theater with out so much as a hint of frustration. I look forward to what Jones will give us next. If Source Code is any sign – the future is for this Director is a bright one.