Review of The Machinist (2004) by Kenr — 02 Sep 2018

The Machinist is yet another movie that looks stylish, is well acted, offers an intriguing plot - then goes on to begin looking overly familiar. It’s obvious the filmmakers had an admiration for Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’, Polanski, Kubrick,(etc), and that’s OK, but to then re-invent something that you-wish-you-had-made is little more than a form of plagiarism.

There needs to be more than look-a-like characters, borrowed writing and directorial touches, similar musical tonality and photographic touches – there simply needs to be more ‘originality’ for anything creative to be regarded as genuine involving art.

The fact that lead performer Christian Bale, starved himself to the point of illness for this role is, dedicated to his craft, yes -but also pointlessly (and foolishly) over the top. The addition of the moviemakers (and writers) obsession with oral sex offered absolutely nothing to the main plot, so why? This work goes on to offer up one gross situation following another --for the sake of crude shock value--lacking true artistic integrity.

Great (or even good) work - needs more than style and look alike value to be fully deserving of any worthy respect. An interesting try but, an overall fail. Lovers of ‘downers’ will be close to the only audience attracted to this ugly, overreaching morbidity.