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Movies / On DVD / The Machinist
The Machinist

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The Machinist (2004)

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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.

Rated: R [See Full Rating] for violence and disturbing images, sexuality and language

Runtime: 1 hr 43 mins

Genre: Dramas

Theatrical Release:Oct 22, 2004 Limited

Box Office: $939,471

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

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Release:

May 19, 2009

[DVD Details]
 
 

Blu-ray Disc Features:

  • Region [unknown]
  • NTSC
  • Widescreen

Audio:

  • Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby True HD 5.1 - English, French, Portuguese, Spanish
  • Subtitles - English - SDH
  • Subtitles - English, French, Portuguese, Spanish

Additional Release Material:

Audio Commentary:

  • 1. Director Brad Anderson

Trailers:

  • 1. Theatrical Trailer

Additional Scenes:

  • 1. Trevor Visits Mysterious Grave
  • 2. Alternate Intersection Crosscut with Burning Paper
  • 3. Pensive Trevor (Alternate Transition to Airport)
  • 4. Stevie's Mysterious "John"
  • 5. Alternate Chase Ending Revealing Chimneys
  • 6. Trevor Tries To Skip Town
  • 7. Trevor Confronts Mother at Cemetery
  • 8. Alternative Version of Holding Cell
 
 
 
 

Reviews for The Machinist

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101 - 120 (sorted by date)
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Though the film starts slowly, it unfolds irresistibly, thanks mainly to Bale's full-bodied, soulful performance.

Full Review Source: E! Online | comment Comment
10/22/04
E! Online

Anderson does keep a fairly predictable, deeply depressing plot line engrossing for most of the way.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Daily News | comment Comment
10/22/04
Bob Strauss
Bob Strauss
Los Angeles Daily News

A meticulously complex story of guilt and paranoia.

Full Review Source: New York Daily News | comment Comment
10/22/04
Jack Mathews
Jack Mathews
New York Daily News
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Anderson gives The Machinist a sickly noirish look that contributes to the creeping horror -- but it's the emaciated Bale's spectral presence that leaves the imprint.

Full Review Source: New York Post | comment Comment
10/22/04
Megan Lehmann
Megan Lehmann
New York Post

This is not a horror film, but it is horrifying.

Full Review Source: Reel.com | comment Comment
10/22/04
Pam Grady
Pam Grady
Reel.com

As flashbacks show Trevor at other moments, when his head is slightly less scrambled and his body less eaten away, the film is never not about process.

Full Review Source: PopMatters | comment Comment
10/22/04
Cynthia Fuchs
Cynthia Fuchs
PopMatters

Watching it, I kept wondering: What, exactly, is the point? The movie sustains its ominous hum, but in the end, it doesn't really give you all that much to think about.

Full Review Source: Salon.com | comment Comment
10/21/04
Stephanie Zacharek
Stephanie Zacharek
Salon.com
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Bale's brilliance in the role lies not only in the fact that he starved himself for months but that he fully inhabits this wasted, paranoid man.

Full Review Source: Boxoffice Magazine | comment Comment
10/21/04
Annlee Ellingson
Annlee Ellingson
Boxoffice Magazine

Bale, always a nervy, risk-taking actor, gives a haunting performance of fierce concentration that goes beyond his dramatic weight loss.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | comment Comment
10/21/04
Kevin Thomas
Kevin Thomas
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Christian Bale's 63-pound weight loss makes this bleak thriller one of the few movies to scale the barrier between chilly fantasy and authentic cinematic nightmare.

Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
10/21/04
Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Effectively weirded-out chiller about a factory worker who may - or may not - be a cold-blooded killer. Bale is brilliant.

Full Review Source: Christian Science Monitor | comment Comment
10/21/04
David Sterritt
David Sterritt
Christian Science Monitor

This ultimately disappointing picture is suitably dingy-looking, intermittently scary, and boasts a nice, creepy score complete with theremins and Bernard Hermann–esque bass accents.

Full Review Source: L.A. Weekly | comment Comment
10/21/04
Kim Morgan
Kim Morgan
L.A. Weekly

The Machinist is a beautifly haunting - chillingly stark - film that places you knee-deep within an oblique nightmarescape a strange and troubled man is experiencing.

Full Review Source: Blunt Review | comment Comment
10/20/04
Emily Blunt
Emily Blunt
Blunt Review

Bale provides us with images that we won't soon forget. The script, however, is never nearly as good as the film's indelible images.

Full Review Source: Internet Reviews | comment Comment
10/20/04
Steve Rhodes
Steve Rhodes
Internet Reviews

A grimy, excessively art-directed psychological horror flick.

Full Review Source: Entertainment Weekly | comment Comment
10/20/04
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Although The Machinist may at times seem to be derivative of those films, and is inferior to them, it is nevertheless a harrowing experience for those to whom this sort of story appeals.

Full Review Source: ReelViews | comment Comment
10/19/04
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
ReelViews
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Entertainment Insiders | comment Comment
10/19/04
Scott A. Mantz
Scott A. Mantz
Entertainment Insiders

Covers familiar ground with elegance, teasing out its twists and turns in a way that seems natural rather than contrived.

Full Review Source: Film Blather | comment Comment
10/19/04
Eugene Novikov
Eugene Novikov
Film Blather

As its stricken hero's prominently posed copies of Kafka and Dostoyevsky suggest, the movie takes itself more seriously than it should.

Full Review Source: Village Voice | comment Comment
10/19/04
Dennis Lim
Dennis Lim
Village Voice
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

A fairly standard issue psychological thriller, although Christian Bale's physical transformation for this film is truly astonishing.

Full Review Source: Film Threat | comment Comment
10/19/04
Phil Hall
Phil Hall
Film Threat
 
 
101 - 120 (sorted by date)
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