Machinist, The

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.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Psychological suspense at its finest.

New York Post Megan Lehmann

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.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Bale is totally convincing, if not especially endearing.

Film Threat Don R. Lewis

The Machinist is so brave and visually impressive, it should demand an audience.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

A harrowing experience for those to whom this sort of story appeals.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

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.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Bale gives a near-great performance as a man with all the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia and the film weaves an ingenious psychological web.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Bale is brilliant.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The film presents a compelling portrait of mental illness, but looking at Bale may make audiences feel as though they're watching a documentary.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

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.

Chicago Tribune Achy Obejas

A moody psychological thriller with a stunning performance by Christian Bale at its core.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

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.

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.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

Not quite stunning enough to live up to a boldly bleak and unrelenting buildup.

Variety Todd McCarthy

An intense, precision-controlled psychological mystery built around a very creepy lead performance by Christian Bale.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

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.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

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.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

An hallucinatory mix of the imagined and the real, all revolving around the mystery at the cold heart of the tale.

USA Today Mike Clark

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.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

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.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

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."

Empire Ian Nathan

It's a result so painfully logical it would make Lynch's hair stand on end.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

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.

Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson

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.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

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.

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.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

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.

Village Voice Dennis Lim

The Machinist has no meat on its bones, and we've seen it all before.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

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.

Premiere Peter Debruge

Director Brad Anderson (Session 9) overtly cribs from everyone from Dostoevsky to Kafka.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

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.