A darkly disturbing masterpiece

Rating: 9/10 (26 February 2012)

I had always thought of Christian Bale as being a bit of a mediocre actor until I saw this movie. Not only is his acting and portrayal of a paranoid insomniac superb but the amount of dedication he put into this movie never fails to amaze me. I didn't even recognise him in the flashback scenes near the end.
The atmosphere in this movie is quite dark and is reminiscence somewhat of the film noir genre. The plot delves deep into the characters life and makes you feel sympathetic for this crazed character which is quite an achievement in script writing and also in the acting too.
This has to be one of the best scripts I have seen made into a film. First of all, the plot is simple to follow (some people would compare The Machinist to Memento, which I found very confusing and therefore, I lost interest)and yet it is complex enough and deep enough to keep an audience captured for almost two hours. There were some parts to this movie such as the hangman games which gives the audience the chance to think they have the right answer, but then the protagonist takes you down a completely different road and makes you doubt yourself, only to come back to the same answer at the end. Killer.
As it goes along it seems a very obvious plot, you think you know what will happen, and then it doesn't, only for it to happen at the end. This I found was a great take on turning a predictable film into an unpredictable one.
One more thing which made this movie great was the cinematography. The filters and washed out colours used in the camera work, really helped to fit in with the feel of the movie, reminding me of the film Se7en which is another great movie IMO, and the score used in this was also great, bringing back music from older classic horror and thriller type movies.
If you're a fan of Fight Club, Memento, Se7en or any type of film like these, I would suggest watching this. The atmosphere in the movie is darkly disturbing and it has a great plot. Although, if you're expecting some sort of horror movie this isn't what you're looking for. This film isn't made to outright scare the viewer, it has creepy scenes believe me but the horror is more subtle and toned down which somehow makes it more dark.
If I had one thing to say about this movie I would say it is very unknown and underrated for what it is, because quite frankly, it's a masterpiece.