Solid Mystery-Thriller, awesome performance by Bale, but conservative plot

Rating: 7/10 (1 June 2005)

People who have seen Memento, Fight Club, Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway will probably not be as thrilled by "The Machinist" as others. At least that was how i felt. The main advantage of this film is definitely Christian Bale's brilliant performance, that even outshines method-acting performances of Robert De Niro. Besides his dramatic weight loss, Bale marvelously shows the machinist's development into mental and physical illness. Bales countenance and gesture brilliantly illustrate the machinist's insanity. But the rest of the film is not more original than other lately released psychological thrillers. The cold and mysterious atmosphere is very well pictured, but one doesn't get rid of the thought that you have seen this on several Lynch films before. The gray and dark colors of the film work perfectly as a stylistic feature, but the whole atmosphere inevitably reminds you of films like memento or fight club.
The denouement at the end of the film is also a bit disappointing, I thought that the twist at the end had to be something special if this film wanted to be silhouetted against other mystery films, but then it was approximately what i had figured out before. Skilled movie watchers won't be having too big problems with figuring it out.
But simply because its stylistic and plot similarities to Lynch or Fincher films, it can also be exciting for mystery fans to watch a movie with such a suspenseful atmosphere and try to figure out the twist before the end.
Nevertheless is "The Machinist" a thrilling and atmospherically good Mystery Film with an absolutely worth seeing performance by Christian Bale!