| 90 |
The Hollywood Reporter
Duane Byrge
A brilliantly honed tale of dementia, starring a skeletal Christian Bale as a tormented insomniac wasting away and terrorized by his irreal existence.
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| 90 |
Washington Post
Psychological suspense at its finest.
|
| 88 |
New York Post
Anderson gives The Machinist a sickly noirish look that contributes to the creeping horror - but it's the emaciated Bale's spectral presence that leaves the imprint.
|
| 83 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Bale is totally convincing, if not especially endearing.
|
| 80 |
Film Threat
Don R. Lewis
The Machinist is so brave and visually impressive, it should demand an audience.
|
| 75 |
ReelViews
A harrowing experience for those to whom this sort of story appeals.
|
| 75 |
Rolling Stone
Director Brad Anderson tightens the screws of suspense, but it's Bale's gripping, beyond-the-call-of-duty performance that holds you in thrall.
|
| 75 |
New York Daily News
Bale gives a near-great performance as a man with all the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia and the film weaves an ingenious psychological web.
|
| 75 |
Christian Science Monitor
Bale is brilliant.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
The film presents a compelling portrait of mental illness, but looking at Bale may make audiences feel as though they're watching a documentary.
|
| 75 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
In the hands of a less talented filmmaker, The Machinist would have felt like a stunt. But Anderson, with a terrific assist from Bale, makes his character's plight achingly physical.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Tribune
Achy Obejas
A moody psychological thriller with a stunning performance by Christian Bale at its core.
|
| 75 |
Chicago Sun-Times
The director Brad Anderson, working from a screenplay by Scott Kosar, wants to convey a state of mind, and he and Bale do that with disturbing effectiveness.
|
| 70 |
Chicago Reader
Andrea Gronvall
Here his (Bale's) physicality is repellent, yet he carries the occasionally creaky plot of Scott Kosar's unsettling screenplay to a resonant finish.
|
| 70 |
Los Angeles Times
Not quite stunning enough to live up to a boldly bleak and unrelenting buildup.
|
| 70 |
Variety
An intense, precision-controlled psychological mystery built around a very creepy lead performance by Christian Bale.
|
| 67 |
Austin Chronicle
Never gives us the nuts and bolts of mental illness and guilt, just the sight of cooped-up steam escaping from a valve that’s about to blow.
|
| 63 |
Miami Herald
Turns out to be something entirely different than it initially seemed, and while the conclusion brings everything to a logical close, it also renders the movie less interesting -- a stunt that didn't merit Bale's startling, and dangerous, transformation.
|
| 63 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
An hallucinatory mix of the imagined and the real, all revolving around the mystery at the cold heart of the tale.
|
| 63 |
USA Today
Give Anderson credit for at least sustaining a mood. This is the kind of all-or-nothing movie in which a filmmaker probably can't waver from his tone.
|
| 60 |
The New York Times
May be an expertly manipulated exercise in psychological horror, but that's all it is. Don't look for the kind of metaphoric weight you'd find in a movie by David Lynch or David Fincher.
|
| 60 |
TV Guide
Anderson is a master of detail, from the film's ubiquitous fish motif to the elaborate carnival set piece that unfolds inside the claustrophobic confines of a spook-house ride called "Route 666."
|
| 60 |
Empire
Ian Nathan
It's a result so painfully logical it would make Lynch's hair stand on end.
|
| 58 |
Portland Oregonian
Although the primary plot line turns out to be a letdown, there are aspects of The Machinist that redeem it. Bale's performance is one; another is the dull, metallic look of the picture.
|
| 50 |
Dallas Observer
Director Brad Anderson (Session 9) is usually really good at humanizing ambiguous characters, and he ultimately succeeds, but he has to fight against Scott Kosar's script.
|
| 50 |
Boston Globe
The main, if not only, reason to see The Machinist is for Christian Bale's title performance, and even then you have to be a fan of hardcore martyrdom in the service of craft.
|
| 50 |
LA Weekly
Kim Morgan
In a way, though, it’s all Bale's show. Withering down to an alarming 120 pounds, he delivers a deeply obsessed performance that leaves us both fascinated and sickened.
|
| 42 |
Entertainment Weekly
Bale exists all too large under the circumstances, a well-fed actor playing at emaciation for the sake of a fiction about a character whose torment is as unreadable as his vertebrae are countable.
|
| 40 |
Village Voice
The Machinist has no meat on its bones, and we've seen it all before.
|
| 40 |
Salon.com
Bale gives a remarkable performance in a movie I can recommend to no one, because the sight of him is more distressing than any of the allegedly deep themes of the picture.
|
| 38 |
Premiere
Director Brad Anderson (Session 9) overtly cribs from everyone from Dostoevsky to Kafka.
|
| 30 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Unrelentingly dreary, and seemingly destined to be remembered, if at all, as that movie Christian Bale lost a full third of his body weight for. It doesn't deserve any better.
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