The Machinist

Rating: 5/10 (14 May 2009)

I should say first off that the ending for this film is very similar to that of Fight Club, where you find out something you think is real actually isn't. Anyway, Trevor Reznik (a very skinny Christian Bale) suffers severe insomnia, he hasn't slept for a year, and as time goes by with certain post-it notes he is supposedly leaving himself on the fridge, and cutting the arm off co-worker Miller (Michael Ironside), he questions his sanity. He attempts to investigate what seems to be a plot against him, getting two women, Stevie (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and Marie (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón) involved, and also a mysterious man named Ivan (John Sharian) hanging around. As he investigates, more and more of his past comes back to him, and after discovering that Ivan is in fact himself, Trevor comes to realise the reason for his insomnia, he hit a child with his car, and everything he has been through fits around that, so in the end he lets the cops put him in a cell, where he can finally sleep. Also starring Larry Gilliard Jr. as Jackson, Reg E. Cathey as Jones, Anna Massey as Mrs. Shrike, Matthew Romero Moore as Nicholas, Robert Long as Supervisor Furman, Colin Stinton as Inspector Rogers, Craig Stevenson as Tucker, Ferran Lahoz as Gonzales, Jeremy Xido as Evangelisti and Norman Bell as DMV Clerk. Bale apparently dropped from about 180 pounds to 120 by eating nothing but a tin of tuna and an apple a day, which is said to be the record weight loss, but it was to get into the part. The film was okay, it was certainly dark and disturbing, and Bale did look the part, but it just felt like something I might have seen before. Worth watching, at least once!