Trevor Reznik (Christian Bale) is a lathe operator who works in a machine shop and he is a very thin man. He is scary thin, actually, because he has been unable to sleep in a year and is totally OCD, scrubbing his hands with bleach and lye at every opportunity. As you can imagine, incredible fatigue and machine shop work are a bad combination. One day, as Trevor is taking a cigarette break, he meets a new co-worker by the name of Ivan (John Sharian). Ivan is brash, menacing and strangely deformed - his missing fingers (due to a machine shop accident) on one hand have been replaced by two toes. Oh, and apparently no one else can see him. Trevor discovers this fact when he spots Ivan in the shop while helping a co-worker named Miller (Michael Ironside) repair a machine. When Ivan distracts him, Trevor accidentally bumps the machine, turning it on and causing Miller to lose his arm. Although he is terribly sorry, he blames Ivan for the distraction, then finds out there is no Ivan working there.
To complicate matters, his co-workers no longer trust him and think he is insane. He also has been finding strange Post-it notes scattered around his house, very similar to the reminders he normally leaves for himself, but more menacing. Someone is trying to drive him mad and is playing a game of hang-man with him. Are his co-workers seeking revenge for Miller's accident or is it someone far more dangerous? It seems he can only find solace in the arms of a pitiful prostitute named Stevie (Jennifer Jason Leigh), or in the company of a waitress named Marie (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon), who works the graveyard shift at the airport café he frequents at 1:30 AM every morning.
As he continues to spot Ivan, he finds himself chasing after him to gather proof of his existence and he becomes convinced Ivan is plotting against him with Stevie or even with Marie's little boy! Trevor goes to great lengths to find proof, stealing a photo of Ivan fishing with another co-worker and even jumping in front of a vehicle to blame Ivan (and his license plate number) for a hit and run to obtain his address from the police. As he digs for info through a thick cloud of fatigue, the answers he gets are not what he expected.
When all is said and done, everything will become clear, pretty much. While we didn't figure every speck of the twist out, we did have a good idea of what was going on before the reveal. Bale does a great job playing crazy, but honestly, seeing him that thin was disturbing and disgusting. Everyone does a fine acting job in this film, but it's definitely not a feel-good movie. There is a ton of symbolism used throughout the film and there is even a featurette delving into this, which was the one I enjoyed the most. The others were making-of featurettes that talked mostly about bringing The Machinist to the screen and were somewhat dry, plus there were some deleted/extended scenes, one of which I wish they had left in.
The Machinist is a hard movie to recommend. It's very weird and offbeat. If you really enjoyed Pi or to a lesser degree, Memento, you might really dig The Machinist, but it's definitely not for everyone. The surround sound sounded great and for the most part, the movie upscaled well to high def. However, especially noticeable was the scene with the storm clouds overhead and they looked really grainy and not good at all. If you have The Machinist on DVD already, I don't recommend a re-purchase. For those uninitiated to the world of The Machinist, a rental is probably a better choice.
