The Machinist...a darker than dark drama.

Rating: 8/10 (11 August 2008)

Kudos to director Brad Anderson. THE MACHINIST is like slowly driving past a horrible train wreck; a morbid curiosity makes you stare and rubberneck. The physical transformation of Christian Bale is a sure shocker. And this story is flat out dark and dank. Bale plays Trevor Reznik, a drill-press operator on the graveyard shift. He is a very troubled man suffering insomnia and is horribly emaciated from not sleeping for a year and counting. He is practically a walking skeleton and he soon starts suffering paranoia from sleep deprivation. It seems the only people he feels comfortable talking to are Marie(Aitana Sanchez-Gijon), a waitress at the airport deli and Stevie(Jennifer Jason Leigh),a hopeless prostitute that is willing to give him some time "off the meter". Trevor begins loosing grip on what is left of his sanity when he's haunted by a mysterious man named Ivan(John Sharian)and tormented by menacing memories of a secretive past. This movie touches every shade of gray as you watch the tortured Trevor slip deeper into a nervous breakdown. Also in the cast: Michael Ironside, Robert Long and Anna Massey.