IS THERE A MOMENT IN YOUR LIFE THAT YOU’D LIKE TO LIVE OVER AND OVER AGAIN? JAKE GYLLENHAAL GETS TO DO EXACTLY THAT IN HIS MOVIE SOURCE CODE… BUT IT ISN’T AS MUCH FUN AS YOU’D IMAGINE.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s science-fiction thriller.

In the film, Jake plays Colter Stevens, an army pilot who wakes up on a passenger train after his helicopter is attacked during a combat mission in Afghanistan. The woman sitting opposite him on the train knows him as Sean Fentress, and an ID card in his wallet confirms this. Shortly afterwards, the train blows up and Colter wakes up in a room. He’s told by scientists that he is in the Source Code, a computer program that allows him to take over someone’s body in the last eight minutes of their life. Colter’s job is to find a terrorist before a bomb is set off in Chicago, which could kill millions.

Directed by Duncan Jones (who’s the son of pop star David Bowie), the film received rave reviews. It was the second science-fiction film from Duncan, who’s been a big fan of the genre ever since his dad read him stories in bed as a child. Duncan told us how his love for philosophy (he once trained to be philosophy teacher) plays a part in the making of his films “There’s a very interesting question about identity in this film”, he said. “I think people feel very strongly that they know who they are, but the other people around them have a very different idea. And then there’s the people they meet for the first time who see them in a different way too. So, I find the idea that you’re more than one person, just based on perspective, very interesting. And this idea has been relevant to both of my movies.”