The Machinist- Review

With a film title that could very much mislead its audience into thinking that this movie fits into a whole new genre, The Machinist is a dark and disturbing thriller that combines eerie imagery and haunting context. One would expect such a work from Brad Anderson to achieve this, however, it does have its flaws. I will elaborate on that later.

In short, Trevor Reznik (a play on musician Trent Reznor's name) is a struggling insomniac who watches his life slowly deteriorate everyday aided by the stench of bleach and the pure sight of his scales. Progressively, his life begins to shift from the ordinary, or so he's been accustomed to, and heads into a spiral of paranoia and self inflicted pain.

I went into this film without any prior knowledge, hearing only the title pop up every now and then in conversation and reviews. The performances were equally as dark as the general atmosphere of this film but not in a particularly good way. Christian Bale is no doubt a brilliant actor and for the most part, I really do like his work. But his role as Trevor in this film just really didn't live up to any expectations I developed throughout the duration of the viewing. Trevor is bland and shows little to no character progression. It is unclear as to what is going on in his head and is even harder to understand what is real and what is not. Usually in films there are very subtle transitions that help the audience to understand if a character is dreaming, hallucinating or is facing something real. Nothing of the sort was present here at all.

This leads me to the flaws present in this film. I really really wanted to like this film. I loved the colour usage of clinical greens, blues and greys and the general focus around mental stability but it really was poorly executed. Up until the very end, I found this film very hard to make sense of. I was lead to all kinds of theories but they became just about as crazy as good old Trevor was. The character progression, as said before, ceased to exist and what stumps me even more...in a scene where Trevor heads to a bar, he goes into the bathroom and washes his hands with Lye. NO HUMAN CAN DO THAT. I will remind you all here: Trevor Reznik is not a superhuman, he does not have superhuman abilities and he is most certainly not immune to Lye which works pretty much like acid and breaks down human tissue!

Realistically, The Machinist is just a character study. Yes, it explores the life of someone who has a variety of mental health issues that can often induce an uncomfortable shuffling within the audience (which was good) but it needs to go a couple of steps beyond to successfully implant that idea into every single viewer. I don't really believe that a rewatch will help iron out these flaws picked up at first watch.

The Machinist is quite a disappointing film with a poor excuse for a story that leaves the audience feeling confused and somewhat dissociated from what they have just witnessed. Brad Anderson ceases to engage and leaves behind nothing but an aesthetic.

Score: 5.5/10.