It's easy to forget Christian Bale's exploits as an action star with his defining roles in films such as American Psycho, The Machinist, The Fighter, Rescue Dawn, The New World and The Prestige, but he has made a tremendous action hero at times. Everybody knows that Bale is ultra-talented, incredibly intense and cut from the same cloth as Robert De Niro, but much like Denzel Washington, he can carry with the drama with coolness of a leading action hero. Bale's most notable exploits in action cinema are as Batman, though for some reason, it feels as if Batman isn't an all-action superhero, an ode to the way Bale portrays him I suspect. Bale always brings a manic intensity and passion to his films and whilst Terminator Salvation was really rubbish, he was terribly miscast and directed by a clown. Some of his more successful action film are the hugely underrated 3:10 to Yuma which he stars alongside Russell Crowe and the shockingly underappreciated Equilibrium, which suffered due to the success of The Matrix. Whilst nobody is in a hurry to see Bale depart from making intelligent and powerful cinema, he makes a great action star and his great relationship with Christopher Nolan could see him feature in more action films. They could easily become the new Denzel Washington and Tony Scott.