‘I’m a soldier of the apocalypse, man!’
Mr Bale’s been in the news a bit recently (you’ve probably noticed) and he’s also been making regular appearances on my DVD player this week as a warm up to seeing The Dark Knight at the IMAX cinema in Birmingham this coming Saturday
Equilibrium
This Orwellian tale is a better film that it probably has a right to be. Essentially 1984 done as an action movie, it benefits from a great cast, particularly Christian Bale, and some good action sequences. The Gun Fu idea manages to be both silly and incredibly cool at the same time and is about the films only original idea. To see what Equilibrium would have been like without Bale check out director Kurt Wimmer’s follow-up Ultraviolet.
The Machinist
How far should an actor go in pursuit of authentisity? Christian Bale goes above and beyond the call of duty in Brad Anderson’s film about an insomniac machine operator, to the point where you start to worry about his health. Bale, all skin and bones, gives a typically intense performance in this surreal story that avoids categorisation, being part drama, part thriller, part horror. It’s an excellent film that feels like something David Cronenberg might have dreamed up, which is high praise indeed.
