A Truly excellent Paranoid Psychological Thriller with a supreme Performance from Bale

Rating: 7/10 (7 June 2009)

This movie was recommended to me by someone who bought this and thought it was excellent.
I watched it and was immediately drawn into the film by the acting from Christian Bale and the moody atmosphere. When we first meet Bale's character he seems to be in a depressed mental state, and due to his wafer thin appearance and his difficulty remembering and sleeping he may be going over the edge. He starts to see and even speaks to a character called Ivan who claims to be a new employee at his factory, but no-one else has heard of him and insist he does not exist, he causes a severe accident at work and as a result is distrusted by his co-workers. Throughout the movie we see him being slowly tipped over the edge and descending into paranoia. The ending is excellent and reveals all with a fairly surprising climax.
The movie is very well done with great acting. The only problem preventing me from buying it is that I am not really into dark depressing movies such as this. Don't get me wrong it is an excellent film with top drawer acting, just not the type of film that would entice me to watch it many times over. It is a little disturbing and not the sort of film I can enjoy in the traditional sense.
Still I give it a very solid 7/10.