Wow. WOw. WOW!

Rating: 8/10 (3 August 2017)

The Machinist is one of those films whose reviews do not reveal even half of the great things about the movie- because most reviews are spoiler-free, and if this movie is to be praised, spoilers must be involved. After watch 2/3 of the film, I said to myself, "what a great film! How come it not score 9 at IMDb when movies like Star Wars: A New Hope can get a 8.4?" Well, it must be the ending. The ending must have somehow ruined the film. It must be so! And it turns out that the ending is one of the best I have seen in a long while. I should give the film a 10, but since I am a nitpicking prick, I would say the color palette is way too extreme and it distracts the viewers in some scenes. Therefore, 1 point off, but still, what a great movie! The acting in this movie is phenomenal. Not to exaggerate, but Christian Bale is almost unsurpassable in this film. This is Godfather level acting. I don't even care about how he lost weight for the movie. The screen portrayal alone is enough to convince me that Bale is one of the best actors in this generation. He manages to be highly stylized and highly naturalistic at the same time, which is simply incredible. Ivan and other characters' performance were also great. Full mark for acting. And then we come to narrative. Oh god. The director is truly a fully-equipped, novel, and splendid storyteller! I have never had such thrill out of the storytelling since Momento, and fairly speaking, I think this is a better film than Momento. This is another one of those plots that would be more than boring if told in chronological order, but the director did it in such a beautiful way that it becomes so engrossingly intricate. Also full mark for story. In conclusion, this film definitely makes it into my must-watch list. It is very confusing to me why it is so underrated, and films like Star Wars: A New Hope can get more than one point higher rating.