The Machinist
June 2009 Reviewed by: Rad Bennett Format: Blu-ray	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

I suspect the reason that Paramount is releasing this title on Blu-ray is to cash in on Christian Bale’s popularity as Batman and his current appearance in the new Terminator movie. But there is an even better reason: The movie is a masterpiece of psychological suspense. It is taut and tightly constructed, presenting complex puzzles that are all wrapped up neatly at the end.

Bale stars as Trevor Rezik, a man who hasn’t slept in a year. He has lost a tremendous amount of weight, looking like someone in those horror photos we often see of prisoners at one of the Nazi camps during the Second World War. His ribs are showing -- he looks like little more than a skeleton. It’s surely a testament to Bale’s perseverance of character that he was able to go from this movie to being a very buff Bruce Wayne/Batman. His weight-loss process gave him a lot of experience, too, so he was able to look emaciated once again for Werner Herzog’s Rescue Dawn, shot between the two Batman movies.

Rezik is a man losing his mind and going over the edge. He sees Miller, a mysterious man (John Sharian) who no one else sees. In fact, he has conversations with this man at the local bar. After an accident at the machine shop where he works, Rezik goes crazier than ever. Proving that Miller is real becomes his obsession. He takes some comfort with a prostitute (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who, recognizing a fellow damaged person, wants to quit her profession to be with him. Every night, Rezik goes to the airport diner for a piece of pie in order to see the waitress, Marie (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón), who has a peculiar hold on him.

Bale’s performance is first-rate, perhaps even magnificent. He nails the terror a person feels when he knows things are slipping and must hold on to any shred of truth to preserve his sanity. The supporting cast acts at a very high level, and director Brad Anderson keeps things moving at exactly the right pace. Of course, he has Scott Kosar’s model script to work with. That surely helps everyone.

Anderson and Kosar shopped the movie around Hollywood, coming up with no takers and finally settling on Spanish producers. For that reason the movie was shot in Barcelona, but you’d never know it unless you were told, because it looks so American. The producers wanted to use Spanish actors in the supporting roles, dubbing them in English, but Anderson wisely held out against that idea. The look was the opposite of Woody Allen’s opulent view of Barcelona. The picture for The Machinist is desaturated to the point where it reminds me of black and white, or perhaps one of those early colorization efforts. A tourist bureau would opt for Allen, but the look is exactly what Anderson needed to make the film more effective.

This look is perfectly translated to Blu-ray Disc. The picture mirrors the theatrical one and is focused and sharp enough, though there is a lot of grain. The sound is very subtle and transparent. The music score by Spanish composer Roque Bañas is very like the work of Bernard Herrmann, right down to signature bass clarinet and contrabassoon passages. There’s even an eerie theremin. The music is mixed well with the dialogue so that nothing is lost. The sound is mostly up front, but every once in a while it calls on the surround channels in a logical and telling manner.

There are two HD featurettes in which the filmmakers discuss their creation, and there’s an SD featurette shot in Spain -- in fact, partly in Spanish with English subtitles. This latter film shows the production crew at work, and we can see how various scenes were set up. In addition to these extras, there’s a breezy, reasonably informative commentary from Anderson, a trailer, and an intriguing set of deleted scenes, some with commentary, some without.

This movie is one of those small gems that sticks with the viewer long after he has seen it. Thanks go to Paramount for making it available in such an enjoyable Blu-ray edition.

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