It certainly is an interesting film that manages to horrify you with the little details but eventually falls back and lulls you into another conclusive and neatly finished psycho-thriller.
Christian Bale. I have new found respect for him. I loved him in the kick-ass film American Psycho but I thought he had demised to the label of another hollywood somebody after his successful line-up of batman movies which were good but not totally mind-blowing or out-there if you know what I mean. But this, this particular role he played makes me look up to him in a different light. Two lights if we are being literal here. I see him in the light of a new disturbing side to Christian Bale and yet I also look up to him in a light that suggests he's more of a gutsy method actor then you think. When I first saw him I honestly gagged but as the movie goes on you will get used to it. Now tell me that's not skinny.
http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a56/NietzscheSprGirl/machinist.jpg
You don't think thats so bad? How about...
http://www.myfittribe.com/files/images/Christian%20Bale%20in%20The%20Machinist.jpg
I don't know about you but I felt mentally violated after seeing that.
Now i've been wasting all this space gabbing about how freaky Christian Bale looks but I have barely talked about the movie. And that's exactly what i am saying. The fact that he is so skinny distracts you from the movie itself for the first 10 to 20 minutes.
The plot that you will keep getting distracted by is basically about a man who commits a hit and run car accident. The movie is set one year (presumably) after this incident and you can see how in one year this crime has effected his sleep, his body and more or less importantly his mental state. It's fun to watch him slowly decline deeper and deeper into total psychosis as he discovers what he is perceiving may not be entirely right. I have to say I was impressed with Bale's performance, he surprised me with his kick-ass take on the schizophrenic aspect of acting. Definitely a step forward from his last encounter with insanity in American Psycho (I just love referring to that movie)
The things that sucked about this movie are listed in order of the plot (mega spoilers ahead)
When Miller loses his arm due to Trevor (Christian Bale) intentionally/unintentionally activating the machine it wasn't as gory as I had hoped. As Miller started screaming, as his arm got closer and closer to the jaws of the machine I instantly knew what was going to happen. And in that same instant moment I knew I was psyched. I was getting ready for some massive gore sequence to remember, I already had sentences coming to my head on how to describe it to you guys but when the moment came it barely showed you anything. A bit of blood yes but it was only standard stuff. A let-down for any gore fan or thriller movie lover alike.
This is another suspense related bummer to me. Yet I'm still trying to decide if it'll just be me who was disappointed or not. When Trevor oh so slowly approaches the fridge leaking gratuitous (yes I said gratuitous) amounts of blood and as trevor fearfully reaches out to the handle with his skinny anorexic hand and as he gets the courage to pull the bloody door open the site I was watching it from froze up on me. I nearly kicked myself in the head when it happened. So when I finally got myself all fixed up again and I let the scene play the blood wasn't from anything horrifying at all. Now I'm not going to tell you what it is because a) that'll just blow the whole shock ending and b) it's evilly fun to torture you with the unknown. So I understand the contents of the fridge is the key to the entire movie's conclusion but I was hoping for something glaringly gruesome. After the failed attempt with The machine Incident I thought The Fridge was going to be the one. I guess not.
And the third biggest flaw in this movie: The Ending.
The movie was so skillfully brought up to be just waiting for a kick-ass ending. Like the way you see an athlete build himself up on steroids. In fact, that's what it was.
A Psychological Thriller on Steroids
And then the ending just tanked it. Like the Titanic on it's way to America only to be bitch-slapped by an iceberg. Or a crackhead discovering he can take on the world only to come down from his high. Or even George Bush thinking he can ride out the election with his ego only to get owned by democracy. The ending died.
You have Trevor screaming at people and realizing that maybe he didn't have everything worked out and then he turns himself in peacefully and co-operatively! And to make it even more cliche' and just-so because he did the right thing and turned himself in he could finally get over his year-long insomnia and sleep.
Bleh!
I wanted to see him go crazy! I wanted one of his friends to call the men in white coats! I wanted to see some real Psycho-Thriller Meltdown ending. Even to just see him end up in a mental hospital trying to convince people that the people he saw are real would be enough. I do have to say there were parts to the ending that even I didn't predict(and no I'm not telling you them hehehe) and they were in fact clever, what a suspense movie should be. But the way it was just rapped up so morally and neatly with no shocking imagery to send the movie out with a bang at all disappointed me. It truly did.
So I've told you the good points and the bad points to this movie so I give it a 9 because of what Christian bale did for this movie but then i take it back to a 7 and a Half because the ending tanked and I was hoping at an MA rating the violence would be better. So watch it and see what you think.
