The performances are nothing short of superb - Bale's skeletal form alone is likely to be the most haunting visual image of the year.
The Machinist (2004)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:131
Fresh:98
Rotten:33
Average Rating:6.6/10
Consensus: A suspenseful low-budget thriller where Christian Bale completely inhabits his role.
Synopsis: Christian Bale delivers one of cinema's most sacrificial performances in Brad Anderson's mesmerizing thriller. Written by Scott Kosar (2003's THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE), THE MACHINIST takes place... Christian Bale delivers one of cinema's most sacrificial performances in Brad Anderson's mesmerizing thriller. Written by Scott Kosar (2003's THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE), THE MACHINIST takes place in a bleak and nondescript American city, where Trevor Reznick (Bale) is quite literally withering away to nothing. During the day Trevor works in a colorless industrial factory, while at night he seeks refuge in the bed of a tender prostitute, Stevie (Jennifer Jason Leigh). For reasons unknown even to Trevor, he hasn't been able to sleep for an entire year. In the process, he has shed over sixty pounds, making him look like a walking skeleton. After an accident at the factory costs Trevor his job, he finds himself tracking a mysterious figure that may or may not, in fact, provide some answers to his confusion. Meanwhile, he begins to connect with a pretty airport waitress, Marie (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon), who shows Trevor some much-needed sympathy. By the time the film builds to its revelatory conclusion, it becomes quite clear just what has been tormenting Trevor all along. Anderson and Kosar's vision is brought to spectacular life by cinematographer Xavi Gimenez and composer Roque Banos, whose haunting atmospherics recall the best work of Alfred Hitchcock. And then, of course, there is Bale, whose performance is as terrifying, brave, and devastating as the screen has ever seen. [More]
Starring: Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Aitana Sanchez-Gijon, Michael Ironside
Starring: Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Aitana Sanchez-Gijon, Michael Ironside, John Sharian
Director: Brad Anderson
Director: Brad Anderson
Screenwriter: Scott Kosar
Producer: Julio Fernandez
Composer: Roque Banos
Studio: Paramount Classics
Reviews for The Machinist
Mark Twain said that Wagner's music isn't as bad as it sounds. The Machinist isn't as good as it looks. But Bale's fever-dream performance is otherworldly great.
Bale's performance has the emotional weight to substantiate this body-art spectacle, ranging from prickly self-righteousness through panicked self-doubt to morbid self-pity...
The Machinist doesn't offer large rewards beyond Bale's presence and its vague atmosphere of dread, but those are enough.
This bleak exercise in paranoia is somewhat thin on 'entertainment value,' but it's heavy enough on mood to warrant spending a few hours inside Reznik's skin.
You'll join the dots in Anderson's thriller within the first five minutes - a real crying shame since Bale deserved much more for his pound -- or 63 -- of flesh.
You can’t stop thinking about how awful Bale looks—partly because his transformation is so unnerving, but also because the film doesn’t give you anything else to think about.
An unsettling psychological thriller despite being composed of old, familiar parts, the film has an atmosphere that's as scary and tense as anything else this year.
Watching The Machinist can be a chore, as it requires absolute attention from the viewer. But don’t let that scare you away.
[Bale's] is a great performance, full of commitment and sacrifice, and The Machinist is one of the year's best films.
The Machinist doesn't take us to a happy place. For those who appreciate true mind-bending grit, though, this is the bedeviled place to be
Bale's body-sacrificing performance is worth catching, even if the story is as thin as he is.
The film is admirably atmospheric but it ultimately loses its nerve and is revealed as just another comforting lesson in redemption.
The trouble with the movie is that its dramatic content is almost as thin as Reznik's extremities, and nearly as obvious as the ribs that poke through his skin.
A product of precision engineering, a compact model of bare-bones efficiency.
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