A Holocaust of the Mind

Rating: 8/10 (6 August 2005)

From the camera angles and cinematography to the Bernard Hermann inspired score, this is clearly an ode to Hitchcock, and a damn good one at that. Christian Bale plays a lonely factory worker whose life is slowly unraveling due to lack of sleep. In his disoriented state of half waking/half sleep, nightmarish paranoia and a creepy mystery lead our protagonist careening down a highway to damnation...or perhaps salvation.
There's lots of clever little nods to things both literary and Hollywood. Shades of "Memento," "Fight Club," and David Lynch abound, but what helps this film rise above a simple amalgamation of previous efforts in the genre is the go-for-broke performance from Bale. He literally made himself look like a Holocaust victim for the sake of the art. "If you were any thinner you wouldn't exist," people keep telling him. Physically, emotionally, and mentally, a man riddled by guilt has never before been more blazingly presented on screen.