When The Machinist begins, Trevor Reznik (played by Christian Bale) is, late a night, dumping into the ocean what appears to be a body wrapped in a carpet. He is spotted by someone with a flashlight, who approaches and asks him, "Who are you?" Then the scene changes to an earlier time, but the mood has been established: The Machinist, directed by Brad Anderson, is a noir film. Reznik, who is extraordinarily thin, works in a machine shop, making parts with a complicated machine alongside others in a small factory. Although the film is in English, the location for the shooting consists of nondescript industrial parts of Barcelona. The factory foreman annoys him but also annoys others. After he gets off work late at night, he gets a piece of pie and coffee at an airport coffee shop and overtips the waitress, Marie (played by Aitana Sánchez-Gijón). Later, he sleeps as usual with a prostitute named Stevie (played by Jennifer Jason Leigh). His apartment is quite spartan in furnishings. He puts stick notes recording his weight on his refrigerator, all showing a decrease to nearly 100 pounds. Another stick note is a reminder to pay his utility bill. Something is bothering him, accounting for the weight loss and the forgetfulness, and the filmviewer is supposed to figure out the mystery from an array of clues that include viewing a mysterious man, Ivan (played by John Sharian) an outing with Marie and her son, an incomplete drawing of the word game hangman, and even his attempt to get run over by a car so that he can report a hit-and-run to the police with the license plate of the mystery man. Reznik cracks up at the end, giving even more clues in the process. The action is gripping, and the ending is not obvious to the cinema audience until the very end. MH
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