Unrelentingly bleak

Rating: 7/10 (1 August 2006)

Take the colors in your typical machine shop and apply them to an entire movie and you have set the tone for "The Machinist." If you want to spend a couple of hours with a tortured soul and see things like a man getting his hand ripped off in a machine, then this movie is for you. I don't think I have ever seen a better depiction of paranoia in a film, for what that's worth. I was so distracted by Bale's physical appearance that it was difficult to watch him. I have to question what it was about the script that excited him to make such a personal sacrifice. It's too bad there wasn't a Holocaust movie being made at the time so that he could have doubled the gain for his effort. Indeed "The Machinist" would not have had its fascination without Bale's skeletal form, but you have to question if this was worth his effort.
This is the kind of movie that you are afraid to recommend for fear of incurring the disapproval and suspicions of your friends.