DVD Review by David Blackwell

DETAILS: 101 minutes, audio commentary, deleted scenes, theatrical trailer, featurette

STUDIO: PARAMOUNT CLASSICS/FILMAX

RELEASE DATE: 6-7-2005

ANALYSIS: THE MACHINIST is a movie in the Hitchcock tradition. This paranoid thriller is an absorbing tale of psychological horror. Christian Bale pulls out a tour de force performance as machinist Trevor Reznik who hasn't slept in a year. His body looks like a skeleton. Bale's thin body for this movie (which he lost 60 pounds for) looks like a monster's or a zombie's. Trevor believes he is stuck in a conspiracy against him. Is he right? Or is he losing his mind?

THE MACHINIST combines the sensibilities of Hitchcock and the mood of film noir. It takes place in a generic US city with a bleached out look. The clues are all there. Definitely THE MACHINIST is worth a second viewing.

VIDEO-

ASPECT RATIO: 2.35:1 (Anamorphic Widescreen)

The transfer magnificently captures the bleached out look of the movie from the colors to the blacks. Image detail is nice.

AUDIO-

Language: English 5.1 Dolby Digital, English 2.0 Dolby Surround

Subtitles: English

Dialogue is clear. The music and sounds are reproduced nicely to bring about the paranoid atmosphere of THE MACHINIST. The eerie music is capture just right.

SPECIAL FEATURES: An audio commentary with Director Brad Anderson is one of the various extras. He goes through how locations in Spain were redressed to look like US locations in addition to other production tidbits and talk about the story.

Eight deleted scenes show that THE MACHINIST was evolving as they tried to find what worked and two scenes have optional commentary on why two great scenes were cut. THE MACHINIST: BREAKING THE RULES is a featurette on the making of the movie which had to face problems like the hot Spanish summers and accidents (the Director twisted his ankle and threw out his back).

FINAL ANALYSIS: THE MACHINIST is a must see. This psychological horror movie is one of the best to hit DVD this year.

this DVD Review is (c)5-27-2005 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission. Send all comments to lord_pragmagtic@hotmail.com  and look for additional content at http://www.livejournal.com/users/enterlinemedia