A lesson in why to eat your greens...

Rating: 6/10 (20 April 2006)

Trevor Reznick; a factory worker plagued by insomnia barely participates in existence, he begins to doubt his sanity after a series of misplaced events occur in his ordinary life. Work becomes a place of abstraction as characters create themselves in his memory. The mangling of a co-workers arm leads Trevor to question his own validity and forces him to discover who or what he has become...
Brad Anderson's brave plunge into the abstract and depraved character of Trevor Reznick is a portrayal that may have been better homed in a Chris Nolan film, the film carries a feeling of sinister foreboding and you're constantly waiting for Christian Bale's character to come to fruition. Like a caged Bateman he travels through the film almost and nearly making your hairs stand on end, but never quite achieves this feat.
Trevor is physically wasted and gives new meaning to the phrase 'guilt will eat away at you', as he repents by starving himself. Post-it notes are his only clues in solving the mystery of how he spends his time, is he a killer, was he framed or is he living a waking nightmare? We begin the film in darkness and although Trevor painfully discovers the 'truth' we are both plunged back into that darkness in which began.
The Machinist has great ambitions and signs of greatness lie in its plot. It belongs in the same vein as Memento and Lost Highway but does not have the confidence to go all out as they do and therefore fails to fully engage the viewer. The masochist in me thinks this film would have benefited from a little uncaged Bateman.