The Infernal Machine

12/3/2022

A lot of this reminded me of "Unhinged" (2020) with Guy Pierce here delivering a strong and characterful performance just as Russell Crowe did back then. Again, like that film, the rest of this story is weak and far-fetched, though. Pierce is reclusive British author "Cogburn" who finds himself being pursued by researching novelist "William DuKent". Initially hostile, for some reason he takes to calling this man from a local phone box and leaving his machine messages telling him to get lost. (Just quite why he doesn't just ignore him... well?). Anyway, this persistence unleashes in the writer the need for a dog and a bottle, and it's after a little too much one night he encounters a local law officer "Higgins" (Alice Eve) and the story lurches from a curious and intriguing personality anal