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American Psycho Review

Directed by Mary Harron and based on Bret Easton Ellis' novel, American Psycho is an excellent cinematic approach to various issues that have sparked constant controversy. While not as graphic as the novel these controversial topics still shine through. Racism, misogyny, gratuitous sexuality and violence are just a few of the obstacles a viewer will meet headfirst when seeing this movie.
From Patrick Bateman's first soliloquy to his last, you get the sense that you're not watching your typical serial killer movie. American Psycho places you right into the mind and daily routines of its villain. What makes the above issues even worse per se, is that the main character has no feelings about what he does. He commits the most horrendous acts with as much ease or emotion as one might use when brushing their teeth.

The role of Bateman is played by Christian Bale. He fully grasps and embraces his character turning it into a precise art. He makes the movie worth watching solely on his performance. He gives the role a dark but goofy edge, which may even cause you to laugh at some of his more vicious acts.

An interesting factor about Patrick Bateman is the fact that you would never suspect him of being a serial killer. He's a millionaire, he has a perfect body, and he can get any girl he wants. He seemingly has the perfect life one might think. No one would ever guess what really goes through his mind.
One of the best things this movie does as a whole is the fact that it turns a very controversial book into a very satisfying and enjoyable film.

Could use a little more cut & T&A

Buy the 1st American Psycho. It was more exciting the 1st time around. Maybe I was expecting too much. Still an excellent perforance from Christian Bale!!!

Makes you think... [minor spoilers]

After watching this movie on Cinemax one night, it made me think of how much I really know people. I hadn't hard about this movie before so at first I thought that Christian Bale seemed like a normal guy. Then when her started killing people, I knew I was wrong. This guy was evil. From the title, I thought this would be like an action-thriller. What I got was an intense horror/drama with lots of suspense, chilling music, and first-rate acting. This is one of the most disturbing and intense movies I've seen in years. Recommended.

I am shocked

I have managed to see this movie twice now. At no point could I find the black humor that some people seem to see in it. Rather, I would call this true horror. Just the idea that people are self-centered to the point of being able to mistake one person for another is mind blowing.

Some people have stated that the chainsaw scene is one of the best parts of the movie. I disagree. To me the real point of the movie is driven home when he returns to Paul Allens apartment to find it completely cleaned up. The shock comes when the rental lady simply asks him to leave and not come back. If this single scene isn't the greatest depiction of horror even played, I don't know what is.

To sum up, if you're into thinking movies buy it. If not, go somewhere else.

Yet another example of wasted potential.

American Psycho (Mary Herron, 2000)

Bret Easton Ellis' novel American Psycho is the nadir of the eighties novel; it reads, roughly, like a three hundred page Sharper Image catalog, an endless listing of brand names and prices with nothing even remotely resembling a soul. When the film was released, the critics quickly came to the same conclusion about it. After a few months, however, better reviews of the film began to surface fromindependent critics and the like, calling it a

brilliant satire, wickedly funny, you know, that sort of thing. So I had to rent it. My constant repeating thought was "it can't be as bad as the book."

I was right. That's not saying much.

Christian Bale (who's going to be typecast as a sleazebag if he doesn't watch out) plays Patrick Bateman, a man whose obsession with fitting in to the fast-moving upperclass Wall Street society of his father manifests itself both as an obsession with the brand names of the things he utilizes in his daily routine and as an unstoppable compulsion to murder.

Herron, who's certainly no stranger to ultraviolence (she's directed episodes of Homicide and Oz, as well as the cult hit I Shot Andy Warhol), does manage to capture a certain beauty to Bateman's homicidal rage; there's a particular scene where Bateman is chasing a prostitute (Cara Seymour) down a hallway with a chainsaw that's almost hypnotic. Where the movie fails is in the spaces between. It's almost as if Ellis wrote the novel on a bet-- "can you take a perfectly shallow character and center a whole book around him?" The result, in both book and film, is painfully obvious; it can be done, but it's not that much fun to experience.

This makes it all the more painful that so many wonderful roles surface in this film, not least up-and-comer Chloe Sevigny as Bateman's secretary, a woman who stands out as the true beauty in a shallow world of glamour; Jared Leto (Requiem for a Dream) as Paul Allen, a business partner of Bateman's; Reese Witherspoon as Bateman's oblivious, apoiled fiancee; and Willem Dafoe, as usual, taking a minor role (a homicide detective) and turning it into something palpably creepy.

When all is said and done, there's just not enough good here to counteract the horrid. * 1/2

Worth watching!

PATRICK BATEMAN is a successful businessman who wears sharp suits, has a killer apartment & good looks & interesting views on life with only one minor difference that sets him apart from other businessmen of his kind, he's also a cold blooded killer! & the more blood he spills the better. Soon several people whom he hangs out with & works with, soon find themselves under Bateman's watchful eye as potential victims, but can this maniac be stopped before more victims can be claimed? American Psycho is a gory, hilarious & very fascinating look into the mind of a 1980's style well dressed psycho killer. The acting is fabulous, the direction was well handled & the cast is very attractive, playing their interesting characters & seemingly having a lot of fun dong so. The film has plenty of satire & is a change from the norm from the usual sleazy & gory horror outing we usually deal with when it comes to this kind of subject, I mean it is a little sleazy at times yes, but it's so much fun your not to likely to care. Highly recommended. Followed in 2002 by a sequel American Psycho 2**** stars

great

the movie is amazing, one of my favorites, but most importantly, the condition in which i received it was immaculate; there were no scratches, no blemishes, and the case was fully intact. thank you so much for selling such a quality product. hope to do business with you in the future.

My Film Listserv Was Right In Recommending This

I was unable to make it beyond 50 pages in the incredibly grisly novel version of "American Psycho" written by Ellis. However, my film group assured me that the movie version was an utter transformation of the novel and Christian Bale, as the lead, a major acting discovery. The group was right. Rewritten with black humor at its core, this tale of the consummate yuppie of the 1980s, who is also a serial killer, held me spellbound, when I wasn't LOL. Bale is also interviewed on the DVD version and you can barely tell he is the same person as the character he plays, Patrick Bateman. This is not a mad-slasher film like "Nightmare On Elm Street". So if you are looking for that kind of film, this will not fit the bill. This is an exploration of the dark underside of a Harvard educated, privileged young CEO and his cohorts on Wall Street and the "horror" is how right the film feels. There is the issue raised of how real Bateman's murders are versus a complete breakdown of his psyche taking place instead. However, this becomes one of the interesting points to debate after seeing this film and is not easily answered. I'm keeping my eye peeled for the next film Christian Bale makes as he is an actor who could do marvelous work in the years ahead.

Psycho alone isn't all that

The first five minutes of this movie summarise 90% of it. A bunch of people talking pointlessly about nothing special. The worst were the commentaries on 80's music during supposedly key scenes. Christian Bale does a fine acting job with the material he is given, and if you enjoy an actor doing the best with weak material, particularly when he has a well-maintained body that is shown off a fair amount, there may still be something to look for here. Put him in a suit and have him yammer endlessly and I'd confuse him with other faceless drones just like some in the movie do.But this movie really isn't all that, it isn't that shocking or disturbing, and we never even really get to know any of the characters... especially the lead. Frankly I know more interestingly psychotic people in my everyday life, though as far as I know none of them have killed. The most interesting person in the movie to me was the guy's assistant, and halfway through the movie discovered I'd much rather hear her story.I've heard some say they don't like how this movie ended. I liked the ending just fine: The credits rolled, I put my hands in the air and said 'Thank God it's over!' and turned it off. Not the worst movie I've seen I'm sure, but seemingly the longest 1:43 minute movie ever. Maybe if Mr. Bale had shown off his well-sculpted form throughout the whole feature it would have been worth a few more stars.It does bug me though -- why do so many directors think that mental illness and having a character exercising in the nude go so well together? At least a half-dozen movies right off have used that connection. So you out there, if you've recently found yourself doing your morning stretches in the nude, get some therapy before its too late!!! :-)

Did He Really Do It Or Was It All In His Head? (Massive Spoilerage)

At first the movie sets things up to make Patrick out to be a cold, calculating murderer who does his grisly deeds by night and mingles in his upperclass yuppy society by day. (By the way..."Norman", "Bateman"...these two names ring a bell?)But then the clues start clashing. People claim to have seen Paul Allen, Patrick's first victim. The population of New York begins to thin out until only Patrick and his targets remain. Women begin to act like the clueless screamer's they're portrayed as in the horror movies that Patrick watches.And then Patrick's world falls apart entirely. He goes through an eerily empty city, shooting everyone he sees, and walks away without a scratch.
The next morning, the detective on his trail has mysteriously vanished, Paul is safely alive in London, and not even Patrick's lawyer is willing to buy that Bateman is a murdering lunatic.So...Is this a movie about one man's decent into self-gratification and vicarious thrills through some really disturbing fantasy? Or a morality play about the lengths people can be driven to when they stop caring?I dunno. I'd probably have to watch it twice. I'd recommend it to those who can stomach the violence, and definitely for anyone who can appreciate a multi-layered tale. I'd say it's worth watching for Christian Bale's scary, scary performance alone.

So good filmmaking..

Again not having read the book, I can't say how good of an adaptation this is, but as a film, it's exceptional. Add to that, this is the role Christian Bale was born to play. I just can't see anyone else doing it. A special thumbs-up must also go to Mary Harron for giving the whole thing a very enjoyable off-beat feel. The performances are overplayed, but on purpose and it works like a charm. It would be totally wrong to call American Psycho just a horror movie. The film is a delicious satire of yuppies and I can't remember laughing so hard recently. Loses touch a bit in the last reel, though, but not enough to make it standard fare. Simply brilliant! And by the way, that's **** for my Rules of Attraction comment. I urge you to give Patrick Bateman a chance.. or are you afraid you might like it? "Is that Ivana Trump?!"**** / *****

What Was That, Anyway?

I don't know quite what to do with this movie. Christian Bale plays Patrick Bateman, a young, Wall Street powerbroker type who, in his spare time, enjoys critiquing albums, kinky sex and murder - and not necessarily in that order! Bale - the only actor in the movie of any significance - is actually rather good in the part, as he shows Bateman descending farther and farther into insanity, finally reaching out for help but not being able to find anyone who believes him. He goes a little overboard at times, but then again that's in keeping with the character.My basic problem with the movie was that I didn't think it ever decided where it wanted to go. It's publicized as a thriller, and as a thriller it's absolutely awful. I first thought that it might be a serious attempt to construct a psychological profile of a serial killer. Forget that. There's no serious attempt to do anything in this movie. It doesn't work too well as a straight thriller either, for one simple reason: there's nothing particularly frightening about it! It simply contains the normal slasher-type violence you would expect in this genre, and, of course, grotesquely mutilated bodies pop up in the most unexpected places - except that, because we've seen these types of movies before, we expect them to pop up! But, on the other hand, maybe this could be looked at as one of those "thrillers" that's so bad it's actually funny. (Or, maybe it's actually intended to be a black comedy. If so, it's not too bad.) And, at times, it really is funny! Let's just say that I spent far more time laughing than I did perched on the edge of my seat!Aside from Bale's performance (and I'm still not sure if he put on a great comedic performance or a lousy dramatic performance) the supporting cast was mediocre. Willem Dafoe had little to do in the role of Donald Kimball, a police detective who seems to be suspicious of Bateman as he investigates one of the murders, but then seems to do little to follow up on his suspicions except take Bateman out to lunch. The best performance of the weak supporting cast was probably that of Cara Seymour as the prostitute Christie, who becomes a participant in Bateman's kinky games.So, again, what to do with this? Maybe just forget it and "return the video?" (You have to have seen the movie to understand that reference.) Or maybe that's too harsh. I mean, it isn't terrible; it's just not very good. The combination of a lousy thriller and a not-so-bad comedy (and, I might add, that either way it falls apart with what I thought was a terribly weak ending) gives this a rating of 4/10.

Enjoyable.

American Psycho is a very elegantly produced film. It features some excellent photography, and it's a gripping experience. It is not a film that will one-day be seen as a classic of cinema, but it is enjoyable and entertainingly obscene, watching "American Psycho" is like witnessing a bravura sleight-of-hand feat. In adapting Bret Easton Ellis's turgid, gory 1991 novel to the screen, the director Mary Harron has boiled a bloated stew of brand names and butchery into a lean and mean horror comedy classic. The transformation is so surprising that when the movie's over, it feels as if you've just seen a magician pull a dancing rabbit out of a top hat. Four years ago Ms. Harron's film "I Shot Andy Warhol" performed similar magic by creating credible facsimiles of Warhol and his motley entourage. "American Psycho," a more ambitious, far more confident film, salvages a novel widely loathed for its putative misogyny and gruesome torture scenes by removing its excess fat in a kind of cinematic liposuction. Except for a few wittily chosen lists, the book's numbing catalog of high-end consumer items has been drastically edited. Its murder rate has also plunged. The trimming demonstrates once again that less is often more. What remains of the story is a sleek, satirical, yuppie-era "Jekyll and Hyde" that blithely tap dances along the fault lines separating movie genres. At the heart of the film is a star-making performance by the handsome Welsh actor Christian Bale (adopting an impeccably snooty pseudo-preppie American accent) that softens the novel's portrait of a serial-killing Wall Street hotshot just enough to force us to identify with this ultimate narcissist. Mr. Bale's portrayal of 27-year-old Patrick Bateman, a budding master of the universe by day (he works in mergers and acquisitions, which he facetiously refers to as "murders and executions") and homicidal maniac by night, is alternately funny, blood-curdling and pathetic. American Psycho is not for all tastes, but for ones that enjoy a good thriller and can stomach blood curdling violence.

Best movie ever!

Not only will this movie make you look like you enjoy a movie that requires a high amount of intelligence for you to understand this movie, but it also brings out the fun of watching a serial killer go completely psycho.

Not that I condone such things, but it's pretty fun to watch. Though your girlfriend may get offended because he happens to kill women in this movie. This is best kept to yourself for your enjoyment.

Die Yuppie Scum!

I love this film, since I love the eighties. The music was wonderful, Christian Bale's portrayal as the schmuck businessman who whines about his life yet gets paid to sit on his ... and do nothing was comical. And Reese Witherspoon was definitely entertaining as the idiot fiancee of Patrick Bateman. Rent it before you buy it. NR version is worth owning, though it's just 10 long seconds more of the threesome scene.

More than just a satire

As the other reviews have stated, this movie is a fine satire of consumerism and the greed of this growing yuppie culture. But it is also more than that. It is an existential view of human nature, of the emptiness and uselessness of life, of being totally, utterly, alone. Bateman's character, who we are led to believe is a psychopath trying to convince himself that he is just insane, and therefore not responsible for the terror he creates, is trying desperately to connect with another human being. He has an idea that if he cuts them up and plays with their insides, and keeps their body, that he will find something more than the superficial outside. He is unable to show his inside, albeit one created by an empty society, unless he is with someone whom he about to either kill or sexually abuse. That is when he starts with his views on music, his one connection with anything more than material. But even his views sound very processed, and, though full of insight, lack any true emotional connection to anything. Bateman points out that he has only two recognizable emotions: greed and disgust. All other emotions he turns into emptiness. Early on, his fiance asks him why he must continue to do what he does. He answers "because I want to fit in". That is all he wants; he wants to be part of humanity, and connect with others. However, as he kills, he becomes farther and farther away from anything human. The brilliant ending completely twists the storyline. I won't say what happens, so as not to ruin it, but I will say that he gives a cry for help that is not heard, and he realizes that he is just a lost soul with no hope of redemption. At this point it becomes apparent that he is in fact insane, but not in the way that he believed--he appears to be schizophrenic, very distant from reality. As he drifts away his pain becomes more and more acute. That is the most disturbing aspect of this movie, more so than any violence or sex. The comfort we can take is that he is truly insane, and for most people there is a way out: his emptiness, as I mentioned, is not purely that. He does have many emotions, he just does not see them. He needs to examine himself, then he may achieve the salvation he cannot find in others. However, before I realized that, I found the movie awfully disturbing, as it suggested that we are all lost souls, with absolutely no hope of ever touching anything real. Do not watch this movie unless you are a)planning to not pay attention, or b)prepared to accept the true meaninglessness of life.

Bale's pyscho performance saves this one

starts out great and ends great. though the people around Patrick Bateman really get what they deserve. the movies sorta let down by the combination of slayings and comedy. dont mix. can Bale be any prettier and he sounds so calm and then he breaks out into the psycho he is. favorite part has got to be the chainsaw part when Bale drops it and then goes AHHHHHH!!! with blood on his face, though did he have to put his running shoes on

why?

Why do most questions on this site centre on what actually happened in the film?In any film the reality that we are presented with is not any actual reality. it depends entirely upon a directorial eye. With this in mind it is hard to judge the success of the film.There are moments of postmodern brilliance (when he shoots at the cars and they explode with a single shot), and there are equal moments of frustration (anyone for pastiche?).It could never be the book (what could?) and that is not the point. this is a film, it is not great. but there are great things about it.

Patrick Bateman give up your day job.

What a surprise, a gem of a movie, great.I put this one off, basically because it had the words 'American' and 'Psycho' in the title. And what with American Beauty being released, was ready for the influx of all films having this prefix as standard.Anyway the film despite it's title is great, I loved the humour, the acting and direction. The eighties have never been so good and yup so cold. It really struck me though after watching the film that the eighties were a very odd time indeed, what a change in lifestyles for many people seeking many greedy acquisitions. And here we have Patrick epitomising the yuppie culture of high rise New York, with a strange assortment of superficial personal and pier relationships.The fact that he is completly deranged probably has something about selling his soul to corporate America, and only psychopaths could be wielding their power in this manner in these institutions (Many of which produce horrific consequences, socially and environmentally globally.)Others who have commented are keen to state that this is not a horror flick. It is true deep dark satire agreed. But why are people jumping to the defence of this film. It is horror, we don't have to see the gore, implied violence and our imaginations are far more scary, check Hitchcock's Psycho.The Batesmanesque twisted persona is a parallel of our our own facination and languish of video nasties. I don't know if I am a Patrick Bateman, I'm probably more of a Sammy Jenkis.9 out of 10.

A solid picture with a star-making performance....

I've been reading a lot about American Psycho for a few days now, and having just seen the movie, I am at a loss as to what all the fuss is about or why this movie seems so divisive.The movie itself is a pretty solid picture. It isn't great, and far from the next Silence of the Lambs as some have suggested, but it does have its moments and on the whole is worth the time and money to see.The main reason to see this picture is for the performance of Christian Bale. This is a star-making performance if I have ever seen one. Throughout the picture I was reminded of Tom Cruise, especially Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut. His performance is both funny and disturbing at the same time, a very difficult line to walk. Some of his scenes, where he is discussing his music while preparing to kill, is brilliant in the way Bale builds the insanity and detachment of his character. You can see it in his eyes, that this character knows no remorse and that killing to him is not so much a choice as a personality flaw, to put it mildly.A lot has also been said of the satire this film has of the 80's yuppie lifestyle. That aspect of the film was one that didn't particularly resonate me. I thought it was a bit heavy-handed, but the 80s yuppie lifestyle served as a very effective backdrop for the better story of thehollow shell of a man who kills because he feels he has to.There are bad parts to this film. I thought some of the characters were unnecessary and some of the storyline muddled, but at the same time those weaknesses contributed to the haunting feel of the film, the world through a serial killer's eyes, where no human being is likeable or of value and the day to day lifestyle seems almost as insane as a killing spree. There were times when I wasn't sure what was happening, but I suspect that was true for the character on the screen as well, which is why it worked even when it seemed convoluted.For all it's flaws, this is a good picture. And whatever you think of the film, everyone has to admit that they left the theater thinking, and that this film has been on their minds for days after. While for some that will be seen as a contemptuous thing, for me that is the mark of a good film. I gave it an 8.