The Machinist (2004)

The movie I picked for today was The Machinist. I had borrowed this dvd from a friend quite some time ago, and I figured it was about time I actually watched it and returned his property to him. It stars Christian Bale before he became the Batman. I actually first became aware of Bale from the movie Equilibrium which was the movie he made right before this one in 2002. But enough about his movie history, how about I instead tell you what I thought about The Machinist? If that interests you, just hit the link below.


As with most of the population that hasn't seen The Machinist, all I knew about it was that this was that movie that Bale starved himself half to death to play the role. Beyond that I didn't know much to go one. It turns out it's about a man named Trevor Reznik who, for some reason, hasn't slept for a whole year. It seems whenever he's about to doze off, he is awakened by a noise or someone passing by. He starts becoming distracted and causes a man to become severely injured at his work in an industrial accident. From there his life seems to continue to slide downhill. If that wasn't enough, it then seems like someone is following him and he starts getting paranoid that everyone around him is out to get him, or make him fail.



Oh god, what is he doing?!

What makes this movie genuinely interesting is the mystery that is only very subtlety and vaguely hinted at with clues that are sprinkled throughout the movie. For the longest time the oddities just don't seem to make sense, or even have any relevance. Like why does it seem like the clocks all around him read 1:30, and even glitch and never advance from that moment. Why do some people seem to say the same things that he's heard someone else say to him earlier? Why is he starving himself?

They're small details that don't mean anything by themselves. Then you learn that he's been awake for nearly a year, and you brush it off as perhaps he's just kinda out of it. I mean, I'd be completely out of it even after one or two days without sleep. Who knows what your perception of the world would become after a year? And this is how I took them. As just a way the movie was conveying his unique and bizarre situation.

I still can't believe the lengths Bale went to for this role. Was it even necessary for him to get that skinny for the movie? It certainly adds a level of shock to the movie, but it couldn't have been good for him to go to that extreme. It's hard to believe this is the same man who only a few years later portrayed the specimen of near physical perfect that is Bruce Wayne/Batman. It's also no wonder why he had a 2 year gap between Equilibrium and The Machinist. It must have taken quite some time to reduce himself to that state with some amount of safety.

I don't want to get much into the story. It's a thriller and above all else, a really good mystery. Any real details I give you could risk giving something away, but I will say that I really liked it. The cast is pretty interesting, even though it's mostly a no-name cast aside from an appearance of Michael Ironside. I think it's one of those movies that you'd actually get more out of it watching it a second time through once you have a new perspective. If you haven't seen it, I definitely think it's worth it, and then probably still worth it for a second watch. At the very least, it's astonishing just to see Bale reduced to the state he's in. What did you think of The Machinist?