The Machinist Review (Sunday Business Post)

The Machinist
Dir: Brad Anderson
Principle Cast: Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jason Sharian.

Apparently director Brad Anderson has voiced his irritation at recent film festivals that he had such problems getting funding for the Machinist that he eventually had to look as far away from Hollywood as Spain to get a green light, hence it’s actual title: El Macquinista. Looking back, he should be happy that the film got made at all. Anderson doesn’t exactly have the commanding status of Tarantino, having directed only one average feature and a handful of tv shows; and The Machinist is not exactly standard Hollywood fare centring around a mentalist anorexic that makes Kate Moss look like Jo Brand in vertical stripes.
Trevor Reznik is a heavy machine worker in an industrial plant who hasn’t slept in a year and is starting to suffer from delusions. When a menacing stranger named Ivan starts hanging around his workplace, Reznik develops a paranoia that results in an accident involving a fellow worker, which doesn’t help the situation. Now he’s finding mysterious notes in his apartment, and getting flashbacks. Guilt, confusion and neverending insomnia start to blur the line between reality and fantasy and soon Reznik is seeing links between the oddly familiar Ivan and everything around him.
An atmospheric thriller that in terms of pace and score hint back at Hitchcock’s heyday, The Machinist is a tense ride of psychological foreplay. A sort of who-dunnit in reverse, it benefits from a remarkably meticulous screenplay, with clever touches that only sink in hours later. Christian Bale, who lost a record 180lbs to play stick-man Reznik is mesmerising in his physical appearance alone, but the intense performance he delivers is disturbingly authentic too, and it’s difficult to imagine this figure as the charismatic and buff Bruce Wayne in the upcoming Batman Begins. Jennifer Jason Leigh appears as her typecast character of hooker with a heart of gold (is this a wise career move?) and Jason Sharian plays an entirely loathable Ivan. On a high-brow note, the film is an exploration of responsibility and the weight of accountability that will certainly find it’s way into many a film nerd’s thesis in DITs around the country.
Yet somehow the film seems like it’s retreading steps of previous successes – the gritty neon-blue cinematography borrows from Fight Club (as does the narrative), and the recent box-office smashes of Memento and Insomnia have prepared audiences for any possible twist at the end. Such is the problem with trends in cinema – add or take fifteen years and this would be a fresh, daring film, and would surely receive a lot more of the marketing and box-office figures that it probably deserves. M Knight Shalayman is suffering from the same malaise, with The Village generally accepted as being a total piss-take. But it’s not just bad timing, there is also something else that stops The Machinist from being a great film. The lack of momentum due to arbitrary scenes eventually leaves time for the punter’s interest to fade and for such a well-woven tale, it seems that chunks of it could be left out without really damaging the story.
Well worth a look though, if only to encourage a healthy binge on popcorn and bon-bons without the guilt.
31/2 out of 5