10 Times Christian Bale Left Us Speechless

1) Harsh Times

In David Ayer’s underrated, under-seen character study of a disturbed war vet causing trouble and looking for employment in a hard corner of LA, Christian Bale achieves the greatest transformation of his career. Never has the actor played to his strengths so well and so internalized a role as he does in Harsh Times, as the explosive Jim Davis.

Jim’s a complicated, unpredictable kind of character, living a life of crime but trying to break into law enforcement, fun and affectionate yet cold and quick to anger, disciplined and confident yet an always vulnerable fuck-up. He’s a typically self-hating Ayer male, but Bale sells it better than any of the director’s other actors ever have. It’s a firebomb of a performance, horrible and utterly unforgettable.