The Machinist features a bravura performance by Christian Bale, and anyone who has doubts about this guy's acting ability won't after they walk out of this picture. If anything, The Machinist further proves that Christopher Nolan and Warner Brothers were smart in their decision to cast Bale as Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins.

The Machinst features Bale as Trevor Reznik (sounds a little like Trent Reznor, doesn't it), a paranoid man with a painful past. This past causes insomnia and severe weight loss, and what's more, Reznik has a difficult time functioning around other people, and due to his enormous fatigue, he becomes a risk at work (he's an industrial machinist). The only individuals he seems to connect with are a sweet natured call girl (a terrific Jennifer Jason Leigh) and a single waitress (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon) who lives alone with her young son. As the film progresses, Reznik's condition continues to deteriorate, and before long the film assumes a dreamlike state so that we the audience begin to question what is really happening.

The Machinist was directed by Brad Anderson (Happy Accidents, Next Stop Wonderland), and the movie is stunning to look at. The tone is picture perfect. I wouldn't necessarily call it creepy, but it is sort of like watching a dream on film with it's shades of blue and abrupt transition shots.

As a mystery, The Machinist fails miserably. Inside the first half hour, I knew what was going on and was irritated that Anderson would take this sort of approach to the material. The whole "twist" ending thing has been done to death, and if anything, it offsets what this film is really about--it sells it short.

As a story about guilt and redemption, The Machinist succeeds in showing how some people deal with certain issues. In the case of Trevor Reznik, his body more or less shuts down, and he doesn't quite know how to deal with things in a rational way. It takes time, and it is the human story that is most satisfying here.

Without question, Bale is the glue that holds this picture together. This is a horrifying, devastating transformation. From the first moment we witness Bale standing in front of a mirror with his shirt off, it is clear that this is a man with major emotional problems. Bale reportedly lost nearly seventy pounds for this role, and he is so unbelievably sickly in this movie, that I thought he might keel over and die at any given second. He is literally skin and bones, and just the sight of his physical appearance was enough to make me turn my head. But not only is this an unnerving phyiscal transformation, it is also one of great psychological depth. There are moments when Reznik rambles incohrently trying to figure out how to deal with his situation, and I really bought into it every step of the way. This is an award worthy performance, and I haven't been this affected by Bale since his young turn in Steven Spielberg's underrated Empire of the Sun.

If Anderson would have ditched the mystery aspect of the plot and just focused on Reznik's problems directly, The Machinist would have had a much bigger impact on me. The added element of the obvious twist seemes like an all to predictabe device. Still, the brilliant Bale and the expert cinematography make the movie worth watching.