The Machinist
Director: Brad Anderson
Year Released: 2004
Rating: 1.0
Christian Bale - so skinny he makes Keira Knightley jealous - is either losing his mind or being plotted against by the world - the safe bet is on the former, but the film tries mightily to make you think it's the latter. It's one of those Unreliable Narrator pictures which seem to attract an audience (and, in this case, a cult following), but I find it to be an unnecessary jerk-around with a lackluster 'payoff' (guilt equals insomnia, gotcha Fyodor). The soundtrack, reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann's scores for Hitchcock, is so inappropriate it's distracting: according to the IMDb, screenwriter Scott Kosar wanted Trent Reznor, whose robotic gloom-and-doom would have been an improvement (hell, silence would have been an improvement).
