Thrilling and Complex!

Rating: 8/10 (25 March 2013)

The Machinist is a well-crafted thriller with one of those usual(but well-done and surprising) twist endings. This low-budget movie is just worth watching for Christian Bale's performance alone as he totally transformed himself and lost sixty pounds for this role. Now that is commitment at it's finest. The overall look of the film is bleak and dismal with grayish colors. That is what we see because we view the world from the main character's eyes and we can effectively see his emotions and feelings through them.
Brad Anderson's film is about a factory worker named Trevor who hasn't been asleep in over a year. He causes an accident at work due to a sighting of someone who no one else can see and from there, his life begins to unravel even more as his paranoia increases.
As I mentioned above, Christian Bale is amazing. He takes a gritty role and brings it to a whole new level. I have never seen such dedication to a role as Bale did. This is one of those films where only one main actor is needed and Bale definitely came through.
Overall, this is a tense thriller that clearly explains the negative effects of insomnia. I liked the ending as it really closed the film in a high note. However, I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. I expected a 10/10 film based off what everyone told me but while this film is very good, it's not great. I admire all the craft that went into a low-budget film like this but I found it really slow at times. But it's still an above-average film. I rate this film 8/10.