Christian Bale is one of those otherworldly talents who always makes us believe his character is one with his time and place, whether it’s the Gotham City of the “Dark Knight” trilogy or the Virginia of 1607 in “The New World. or the New York City of 1987 in “American Psycho” or late 19th century London in “The Prestige.” That’s the case once again with Bale’s portrayal of one Augustus Landor, a renowned detective in 1830 who is called upon to solve a grisly crime at the West Point academy in Scott Cooper’s starkly beautiful and quite strange and deeply haunting “The Pale Blue Eye.”
From the moment we see Bale as Landor, his face lined by years of seeing the worst people can do to one another, we believe every inch of his portrayal. Even when writer-director Cooper’s adaptation of Louis Bayard’s acclaimed novel takes some insanely big dramatic swings and doesn’t always connect, Bale is immersed in his performance — equally powerful when he’s quietly revealing a painful moment from his past or exploding with the earth-shattering rage. When the screenplay gives Bale the opportunity to bellow, “DOES YOUR DAUGHTER SPEAK TO THE DEAD!”, you best believe he’s going to lean into that line reading with a ferocity few actors can match.
