What to Rent on DVD - The Machinist

Directed by Brad Anderson, The Machinist is a 2004 drama about a man who doesn't eat, who doesn't sleep, who doesn't know where his life is going. He seems to be going a bit crazy but he isn't sure. Is he seeing things or is someone stalking him? The character, is sometimes on the brink of wanting to die and other times so angry at the people around around him that he can;t stand it. But he is also taken by two women in his life who it seems almost impossible that are interested in him.

A male model, he is not. Bale is so thin that you can see the bones in his stomach and his back. His stomach skin sags for lack of muscle and his eyes are sunken in as if he were in a concentration camp. For the role Bale lost 80 pounds and ended up in the hospital because of his thinness. It almost looks as if it were a special effect but sadly it is not.

His skinniest only reflects that the character is going through something so psychological that he denies himself food. The story goes deeper and deeper in his psychosis until even the audience gets confused as to what is happening although we do figure it out at some point. But when we do figure the actual problem out, there is another bigger mystery that we never saw coming.

This tale is a testament to how our past can come back to haunt us without us even knowing it. Sometimes we can be so focused in what's going on in our current lives that we forget our past. And when we forget our past, we can never fix it.

Christian bale is at his best and his least sexiest in this film. He doesn't look or act like himself which is the best you can do in a film. We feel sorry for him throughout the film but we're not sure why. This is one of the films I like Jennifer Jason Leigh in the most. She's still herself but she plays a hooker that isn't over the top and knows what she wants. The setting is dingy and dirty, the cinematography is something to pay attention to. The blues and the grays make for a very gloomy film.