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Overall Rating
  Awesome: 54.46%
Worth A Look: 33.66%
Average: 7.92%
Pretty Bad: 2.97%
Total Crap: 0.99%
8 reviews, 53 user ratings
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| Machinist, The |
by Chris Wilson
"A thriller that trims the fat from its thrills… and its lead actor."
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I won’t lie to you. On paper, The Machinist sounds about as exciting as watching a two hour quilting lesson. There are no explosions or gunfights. It doesn’t have political conspiracies or even kinky revenge / murder / sex triangles. What the film does have is a plot that will jerk its audience around and around in the cleverest of ways. And no quilts.The opening shot is haunting. A skeleton of a man is dealing with what appears to be a dead body. The man walks over to the window and suddenly it becomes apparent: this is what Christian Bale looks like at 120 pounds. This is no computer gimmickry (a trend that thankfully continues throughout most of the film); the man lost over 60 pounds to inhabit his role.
Bale plays Trevor Reznik (whose name sounds oddly like the musician behind Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor), a man who claims he hasn’t slept in over a year. Obviously he hasn’t been eating very well either. Trevor works as a machine operator in a foreboding factory somewhere in Los Angeles. When he’s not at work, Trevor spends his time bleaching his bathroom floor or frequenting his favorite prostitute (Jennifer Jason Leigh). As if this weren’t a bleak enough existence, Trevor causes an accident at his job and begins to receive threatening notes in his apartment. Even worse, he begins to see a man who others claim doesn’t exist, a man who may help him uncover some terrible lie about what’s going on around him. Trevor struggles to uncover what’s real and what’s hallucination as his life begins to spiral downward.
The Machinist could best be described as a noir thriller. The plot is full of intrigue, the lighting and shadows are made as atmospheric as possible, there’s the kind-hearted hooker (an annoying Hollywood trope that’s getting harder and harder to forgive). Comparisons to Memento are fair but instead of playing with time to deceive the audience, director Brad Anderson and first-time screenwriter Scott Kosar play with reality. While not as shocking or fresh as Memento, The Machinist has better pacing and really draws the audience into the world of a man unsure of his sanity.
For any thriller, the essential component is a conclusion, a piece of the puzzle many seem to tack on at the end. But The Machinist manages to tie everything together, something I became increasingly worried about as the film kept throwing out surprise after surprise. The beginning is intentionally confusing, which is the only jump in time that isn’t clear. Regardless, the film leaves plenty of room for interpretation (with its trillion Dostoevsky references for starters). Who represents what, what kind of reality was this and other fun philosophical stuff. Sigmund Freud bubble pipe not included.While not for the summer blockbuster crowd, The Machinist makes a great alternative to the explosions. It’s a well crafted thriller through and through, and it’ll spin you around without the annoying whiplash of some other movies. There are no lies, just deception. And a man who needs to eat a few bowls of ice cream.
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link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=8511&reviewer=400
originally posted: 06/27/05 09:44:52
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Sundance Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Sundance Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Chicago Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Chicago Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Vancouver Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Vancouver Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Toronto Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Toronto Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Mill Valley Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Mill Valley Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 Leeds Film Festival. For more in the 2004 Leeds Film Festival series, click here.
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USA
22-Oct-2004 (R)
DVD: 07-Jun-2005
UK
N/A
Australia
02-Jun-2005
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