Review of The Machinist (2004) by Colyn K — 04 Aug 2012

A creepy and twisted psychological thriller that will keep you guessing from beginning to end. The Machinist is an underrated and often over looked film that gives us one great story to delve into. This indie film is one of my all time favorites, a film that is simple and gets its story across. The Machinist is dark, eerie and in the end one of the most memorable psycho thrillers I have ever seen. From Brad Anderson's gloomy directing and Scott Kosar's intensely dark and gritty script.

Christian Bale is outstanding and truly becomes his character, he leaves you to wonder is he day dreaming? is it really happening? is someone out to get him? Bale may have won an Oscar for The Fighter but this may be one of his best if not his best performance of his career, he dropped to nearly 100lbs for the movie! His performance is truly mesmerizing you see Bale's insomniac character, Reznik feel fear, doubt, stress and his desire to sleep but his main desire to solve who is stalking him. The performance is all in his facial expressions, Bale is the king of method acting.

The music incorporated really helped bring out the eerie and noir like atmosphere of the film along with the gloomy colour brings out the atmosphere and dark side of the film. What was awesome is in the end how the story unfolds you see the main reason as to why Bale's character feels this way it all has to do with conscience and guilt. A spectacular film. I have said it once and I will say it again Bale may be this generation's finest actor.