very moody

Rating: 7/10 (21 September 2005)

When Trevor Reznik has slept in a year, he starts to doubt his own mentality. Not sleeping for a year he is very thin, very thin; so thin its scary. Trevor works at a machining company and when an accident cut off a fellow workers arm, people start doubting him; thinking that he's a heroin junkie and losing his sanity. His only two friends is a prostitute Stevie and a waitress at the airport, Marie.
The theme a paranoia and identity crisis has been done a lot; Meneto, Pefect Blue, Identity, Fight Club, Insomnia, American Psycho, and its been done good before, but in the Machinist its not as good as it should have been. The story is abit thin and its very noticeable, the movie is a slow burn and takes ages to build up. This one is hard to put together as well, it doesn't give you many clues, with there only being about 5 jigsaw pieces, instead of about 20 pieces. But there isn't a lot to this as there isn't a lot of depth to it. If there were more sub-plots and if it moved at a quicker pace it would have been more intense.
The direction is detailed and the cinema photography is great. the use of blue-grey washes added a very bleak, depressed mood. Reflective surfaces are used to great extent; reflecting Trevors distorted and fractured life. The acting isn't great, but Christian Bale does a good job, but you keep focusing more on his body than his acting. You kinda need to watch this twice, once to see his stick of a body, then the second time to pick up all the pieces you missed from the first distraction.
This is more of a mood piece than a thriller, its kinda like if fight club was an art house film.