Ben Ripley is a fantastic writer. Almost a year ago, I got my hands on the spec script for a movie called ‘Source Code’ and Ripley filled 120 pages with an intense story and brilliant prose. But as I was reading the script, one part in particular stood out. For a few years now, I’ve noticed Hollywood’s infatuation with the idea that the true terrorists are misguided ‘patriots’ and right wing radicals; that our focus is often lost pointing fingers at the usual suspects. This idea wormed itself into the Source Code as well and it’s about time someone point out the foolishness of this far-too-common story swerve.

If you’re not familiar with the just-released flick Source Code, it stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a veteran of the war in Afghanistan involved in a secret military project. A computer application, called the ‘Source Code,’ developed by the military, allows Gyllenhaal to virtually revisit the past. Immediately after a terrorist attack in Chicago (the script featured New York City), Source Code is fired up and Gyllenhaal is dispatched to find out if more attacks are coming and to locate the person who carried out the attack. Problem is, he can only go back 8 minutes (I’m not quite sure why the Source Code has this ridiculous limitation – you can virtually go back in time… but only for 8 minutes?) and the train is full of suspects. Who was responsible for this terrorist attack?

Naturally, Gyllenhaal’s first suspect is a Middle Eastern man acting bizarrely. He chases the man down only to find that he had no connection to the crime. You see, not all Muslims are terrorists! Did you suspect him too, racist? After tracking down and accusing nearly everyone on the train, our hero finds out the killer is some crazy jingoistic right wing nutjob. Those people are scary, aren’t they? The bomber is called ‘anti-government’ and it is clearly alluded to that he is more than likely some crazed Republican who wants to destroy the country to rebuild in some post-Obama paradise. Just as insane and bigoted as ‘blame the Muslim’ but this time in the opposite direction.

The strange thing is, most of this wasn’t in the early draft of the script that was sent to me. In the script, the bad guy was actually an investor attempting to manipulate the financial markets (still, I’m guessing that fictional character voted Republican as well) and his motivation was greed. There wasn’t a single mention of radical politics of any kind and the demise of the bad guy was different in every way. They completely re-worked the script to add in this nonsense about ‘anti-government’ motivations. And it came off really cheesy and partisan.

The intelligence officials in the story vary from script to screen as well. ‘Dr. Rutledge’ was a pipe smoking scientist in the script while in the movie he is a hard-nosed, heartless intelligence official. ‘Goodwin’ was the ‘bad cop’ that turned good and raged against the Source Code puppet masters. In the script, Goodwin was a man. In the movie, a woman, naturally. Everything about these changes seems political in nature. The story started in New York with a rogue financial investor, some bizarre acting intelligence officers and an interesting plot. It ended up, in celluloid form, in Chicago, sprinkled with partisan politics and worn down to a shadow of its former self.

Hollywood executives clearly had a different story to tell, though. And, thus, we end up with a pale skinned white terrorist with American flags on his explosives equipment. Because if you do this often enough, the general public will be more inclined to buy this ‘the other side is simply dangerous’ argument that is meant to do nothing less than shut down debate. They’ll tell you that uneasy feeling in your stomach when you board an airplane alongside several men in Islamic garb is unfounded and that the true danger is with these Tea Party activists. But last I checked the radical Islamists had a much higher death count. Are you a new Hollywood movie bad guy?