Psychological masterwork

Rating: 9/10 (20 August 2016)

Somehow slipping under the radar – possibly because it was made in Spain – THE MACHINIST is probably the best film of 2004, certainly beating the heck out of every other film I've seen from that year as yet. To say too much would be to spoil the proceedings, so I'll keep it simple by saying that this movie is one of the most original, inventive and, yes, moving that I've seen in an age. The movie unfolds at a slow pace which never really speeds up, but the strength lies in the character build-up of Trevor Reznik, a fully flawed and believable human being. It's a movie hard to classify, bearing similarities to MEMENTO but again, being very different in scope and storyline.
There are certainly frightening, gruesome moments to this movie but neither is it a horror movie: instead it's a creepy psychological thriller with some superb acting from Christian Bale, who is at his best when cast as tormented anti-heroes. Bale – whose weight loss for the film is extremely disturbing in itself – appears an emaciated skeleton and the viewer gets to watch as his mind slowly unhinges. Why didn't the guy get an Oscar for this acting? He beats the heck out of anything Russell Crowe has donethe other cast members also give human performances, from Jennifer Jason Leigh's hooker-with-a-heart to Michael Ironside's industrial worker, once again continuing in tradition by losing a limb in this film. The exception is the demonic performance given by John Sharian, a kind of doppelganger/nemesis for Reznik, who's just plain weird. Still, THE MACHINIST is a flawless piece of cinema which has a brilliant twist and something very, very true to say about the human condition.