The Infernal Machine is quality for 1.5 acts. Guy Pearce does great work as novelist Bruce Cogburn, who's last 20 years have been spent living as a hermit in the California desert due to his one and only published work, the film's title, inspiring a young man to an utterly horrendous act
His torture is ramped up when he begins receiving mysterious, persistent correspondence from another writer, William DeKent, requesting assistance with a non-fiction book centered on previous events.
Cogburn and his relationship to his own work is revealed as bit of a twisted knot. The how and why of that relationship, if revealed earlier and with greater subtlety, would've tested the audiences relationship with Pearce's character and provided for a very interesting final two acts.
Instead the film becomes a poorly constructed suspense thriller, employing preposterous occurrences and every cliche imaginable. A TV-news graphic just happens to lists 12+ names in the perfectly required order for a goosebumps moment. An entire set piece is a blatant rip off to the climax of a certain David Fincher film.
Yet, one cannot get past the sense of lost opportunity. Somewhere among a pile of paper is the original script, which held a tremendous idea. Most likely it's soul was torn apart, Voldemort style, by studio executives. The result is a film that becomes cheaper and more nonsensical with every passing scene.