The best way to describe “Source Code?” It’s “Groundhog Day” meets “Quantum Leap.” It stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Captain Colter Stevens, an army helicopter pilot who suddenly finds himself on a mission to find a bomber who blew up a Chicago bound train and killed everyone onboard. The movie’s title refers to a special program that allows him to enter the body of one of the passengers on that train for the last eight minutes of their life. So basically, this is “Groundhog Day” with a much, much shorter time schedule.

This is a great concept for a movie as we all have those moments that are as painful as they are unforgettable. Whether we admit or not, we keep playing them back in our minds over and over again, changing the outcome to something that is more pleasing to our ego and sense of well being. Even though it does us no good to dwell on the past, we fall into those patterns when our present isn’t all that great, and our future is more uncertain than we would like it to be. Through the breakthroughs of science, Jake gets to relive a moment that (while not his own) allows him to change things even if it’s in an alternate reality.

Of course, we can replay a moment from our lives to where we can no longer remember what was real or what was not. This movie explores that as well, making one believe that if our lives were predestined, they won’t be anymore thanks to science!

“Source Code” is director Duncan Jones’ follow up to “Moon” which itself was one of the very best movies of 2009. Like “Moon,” its main character is caught up in a situation not entirely of his making, but which becomes clear as the plot rolls along. Like Jake’s character, we are making discoveries about who he is along with him, and we will probably not like all the answers we find.

From the outset, this movie looks to be a whodunit, but that ceases to be the case before the story reaches its midpoint. Besides, it’s pretty easy to figure out who the bomber is, and it’s only a matter of time before Jake confronts that person to learn their true intentions. In actuality, it’s about a man caught up in a situation that he has no control over, and of how he gets that control back in a way no one can predict.

Jake Gyllenhaal remains one of the most dependable actors in movies today, and he doesn’t let the audience down in this one. In many ways, his performance is not too different from others he’s given in recent years, so there’s not much new to what he does here. All the same, he’s very good, so why complain? Jake engages us emotionally in his character’s struggle as, like him, we don’t know how we got into this and we are desperate to get answers.

Duncan does great work in making each visit to the same eight minutes unique from the others Jake gets unwillingly subjected to. “Source Code” could have been redundant as hell, and certain moments and actions are repeated ad nauseam throughout, but each eight minute period has a different theme or construction to it. There are various people Jake has to meet, and there are other things for him to take advantage of in the little time he has to work with. Jake’s character also pulls out the rug from under us to where once the bomber is found, he finds there is still work to do.

Aside from Jake, “Source Code” also features other strong performances like the one from Vera Farmiga who was so great in “The Departed” and “Up In The Air.” Her character of Captain Colleen Goodwin at first looks to be Jake’s embattled conscience, but it’s really the other way around. Vera is great in taking a typical military stock character and giving her a heart and soul that strongly informs the decisions her character later makes.

Also in the film is Jeffrey Wright who plays the creator of Source Code, Dr. Rutledge. This could have been a simple obsessive doctor, one mad with power, or one that is overly cruel. Somehow, Jeffrey succeeds in making Rutledge something of an enigma to where you’re not quite sure what to make of him. He may not be a mad scientist, but he’s also not the warm kind either.

And of course we have the infinitely lovely Michelle Monaghan here as Christina Warren, girlfriend to the man Jake’s character inhabits. Whether its “Mission: Impossible 3,” “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” or “Gone Baby Gone,” she always has a wonderful presence about her, and her smile brightens our mood every time we see it. And like many actresses I tend to have a crush on, she is already married (darn).

Is “Source Code” an original movie? Probably not, but it sure feels like it compared to most movies today which, if they’re not remakes, are simply not so subtle reflections of last year’s biggest hits. You could even say that there is a bit of “Inception” in this story as it involves searching through the mind of another person. But it’s a pointless argument because not much of anything is original these days. It becomes a quest to take elements from other movies or stories and make them your own, and Duncan has succeeded in doing that here.

Duncan Jones is quickly becoming one of the most inventive directors in movies today, and I am eager to see where he goes from here. While “Source Code” is a bit confusing at times, and I didn’t quite buy the movie’s concluding act, it’s an enthralling mystery with a good dose of exciting action. Hopefully Hollywood studios will start taking the time in being more openly inventive instead of joust regurgitating the past.

Still, it would be nice to change some of the more painful moments from our past so that we can look at ourselves in a kinder light. While it is best to make peace and forgive ourselves for our foolish trespasses, science is always catching up with us. Just you wait!

* * * ½ out of * * * *

Brothers is Jim Sheridan’s remake of Susanne Bier's 2004 Danish film of the same name, and it continues his long fascination with families torn apart by war and strife, and of how they fight their hardest to keep it all together. It stars Tobey Maguire as Sam Cahill, a Captain in the United States Marine Corp who is about to be sent off for another tour of duty in Afghanistan. Before he goes, he picks up his young brother Tommy (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) who just got released from prison after a sentence for armed robbery. Despite their differences, they are as close as brothers can be, even if their father (the always reliable Sam Shepherd) clearly values one over the other. But then things get completely turned around and not necessarily for the better.

When Sam’s helicopter crashes in foreign territory, he is assumed dead. No one even bothers to tell Tommy right away, which shows you the respect he has compared to Sam. But you know from there that he will eventually bond with Sam’s wife Grace (the always lovely Natalie Portman) and her two adorable girls Isabelle and Maggie (Bailee Madison and Taylor Geare), and that Tommy and Grace will get more intimate with each other than they should.

But surprise, surprise, Sam turns out to be alive after having been tortured physically and mentally by militant forces. Thanks to a decision made a la Meryl Streep in Sophie’s Choice, Sam makes it back home to his loving family, but he’s not the same. Full of anger and self-loathing, he becomes distant from everyone around him and has no idea where or how to channel his anger. Soon, he becomes obsessed with going back to Afghanistan to do another tour of duty as he feels that he can still be of help over there. But what’s worse is that Sam begins to think that Tommy has slept with Grace, and his paranoia becomes all too consuming to where reality is just far too difficult to face.

If you have seen the trailer for Brothers already, then you will pretty much get the structure of the film as its beginning, middle, and end parts are clearly defined with only the end being unpredictable. Overall, the movie feels like an average melodrama with the brothers being inseparable, the parent valuing one child over the other, etc. I have seen a lot of movies like this, so the aura of familiarity feels all too played out for me to get completely involved with what’s going on here. There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking about Brothers in the way it treats war and the damage it can do to soldiers and the families they come back to. I guess I just wished that Sheridan had brought more to this remake than what has been done and overdone with the aftermath of war.

Don’t get me wrong though; Brothers is by no means a terrible movie. Director Sheridan does a very good job of giving everything a very down to earth feel which draws us much deeper into the story. With a movie like Brothers, this is especially important. The majority of the action takes place in an everyday American town that does not feel all that different from the ones we grew up in. That air of realism keeps the movie from being completely average, and I do want to acknowledge the effort the filmmakers put into it.

But the major strength of Brothers that really makes it worth watching though is the acting. All three main actors are superb in roles you wouldn’t necessarily expect to see in. Jake Gyllenhaal is surprisingly good as the rough and tumble Tommy when you consider that he has mostly been typecast as the good guy in Hollywood. Then again, this is the same actor who played Donnie Darko, a character who flooded an entire school and set Patrick Swayze’s house on fire, so you got to give him that. Jake never overplays the character here, and he manages to keep Tommy from seeing like a stereotypical criminal who is not the heartless thug certain people make him out to be.

Seeing the ever so radiant Natalie Portman here is a scary reminder of how horrifically stiff she came off in those Star Wars prequels (thanks a lot George Lucas!). From a distance, she looks too young to take on the role of a mother of two. I mean, as Princess Amidala she did give birth to Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, but her character died just after giving birth, so does that still count? Oh well, it doesn’t matter because Natalie does the kind of excellent work we have always come to expect to her. She handles the complexities of her character with utter skill, and never do we see her acting. Natalie inhabits Grace and gives her strength and inescapable vulnerability in the midst of a tragedy she hoped to never experience first hand.

But the best performance in Brothers clearly belongs to Tobey Maguire who takes his character from a loving father and patriotic soldier to a mere cinder of his former self. When we see him come back from a war everyone thought he perished in, Tobey succeeds in making Sam Cahill a very frightening presence whose change in personality escalates the tension in everyone around him. Like an unstable piece of nitroglycerin on the verge of exploding if you shake it just a little, we stand at attention, knowing he will eventually explode and hope that the damage won’t be too severe. Maguire is a very long way from Peter Parker and Spider-Man with this one, and he once again proves there is more to him than that iconic character (which he won’t be playing anymore anyway).

Furthermore, all three stars are surrounded by a great cast of stellar actors. Sam Shepherd makes roles like the father seem ever so effortless for him to play, and while his is a predictably clichéd character, he still imbues Hank Cahill with a real humanity that is strongly felt. It’s also always great to see Mare Winnigham as Hank’s wife Elsie, and she continues to be one of those underrated actors who never fail in doing fantastic work in one project after another.

However, I really have to give special recognition to the two child actors Bailee Madison & Taylor Grace Geare who give amazingly unforced performances as the young Cahill daughters. I keep talking a lot about certain kids who give performances that are far beyond what we could typically expect (Max Records from Where The Wild Things Are for example), but these two girls come across as so natural to where (like Natalie) you never catch them acting. Bailee Madison makes an especially strong impression as Isabelle, particularly in the scene where she intentionally irritates her dad whom she no longer recognizes.

Indeed, there are a lot of strong things about Brothers, and Sheridan remains a director great at capturing the dynamics of families struggling to get past a swift change that upsets their entire balance of living. I really want to give it a solid recommendation, but the movie still feels overly familiar, and it pales in comparison to so many other movies of its type. The movie’s climax seems a little too simplistic given what we have witnessed, and it feels like it ends long before it should have as if it were cut off at the halfway point. I wanted to see a little more of the aftermath, but what we get instead is something much too convenient that doesn’t resolve the conflict completely.

Brothers does make for a good rental based on the performances alone, but in retrospect, I don’t think that I missed too much by not seeing it in a movie theater.

**½ out of ****