For those of you who've seen Empire Of The Sun, American Psycho, Shaft, Regin Of Fire, Equilibrium, Batman Begins, and even the lesser known Metroland, be as prepared as you can, because you won't believe your eyes when you see Christian Bale in a incredibly well-crafted thriller, The Machinist.

Trevor Reznik (Bale) is your everyday lathe operator in a machine shop. This, I can tell you, is just about the only 'everyday' thing about our friend Trevor. You see, Trevor has not slept in an entire year. And when you see this movie, you'll see that he really HASN'T. Our movie opens to Trevor moving as fast as he can to try to cover up something. In the next scene we see him by a cliff with a rolled up carpet and feet hanging out! What a way to start a film eh? Whatever Trevor's done, he's doing his best to hide it. Things start to unravel themselves from here...

Trevor has a somewhat relationship with Stevie (a stay-at-home prostitute), who keeps getting calls from her "psychotic ex-boyfriend", and a budding one with Marie, a waitress at the airport whith whom keeps him happy with coffe, pie and jovial conversations. Keep your eyes peeled, as you'll see what reality for Trevor looks like. As he fights fatigue for rest, the one thing that's moving faster than he can cope with is his mind.

I really want people to see this movie. I don't want to say too much more without giving away too much of the story, because it's really worth the 101 minutes. You may have to watch it again, just to make sure you saw what you saw, and heard what you thought you heard. But regardless of what you think you know, the ending does NOT DISSAPOINT. You will find yourself saying: "Ohhhh..... Wow!" Then you'll want to watch it again, or at least scan the DVD to make sure you really understand what you saw. This is a DVD worth OWNING. Don't rent. Just buy it.

– Brian K. James