Review of American Psycho (2000) by Filipeneto — 24 Jun 2018

This film is based on a book I never read and talks about the life of Patrick Bateman, a successful New York stockbroker who lives for appearances because of his exacerbated materialism. He loves appearances, personified on his perfect face, on his business card, in his home and ostentatious way of life.

However, he feels that something is missing, and that he can not be complete with just that. Then he begins to kill and maim all those he can (prostitutes, beggars, people he hates) in order to extricate the contempt he feels for others and feel a more intense emotion.

Thus, this film becomes a huge criticism of the world of appearances in which we live, and in which a monster only needs to look beautiful and successful to be well accepted by our society. However, its such an implicit criticism that many people focus on the crimes and ignored the philosophical reflection around the character.

Christian Bale was huge in the lead role, and his strong and impressive acting is undoubtedly one of the main reasons to watch this movie. He is definitely to be congratulated, having made in this film one of the strongest roles in his career.

The rest of the cast gives the actor a strong foundation for him to grow and shine. In spite of all this, it is a hard-to-watch movie, with very crude and violent images of murders and mutilations. Some consideration is needed before watching, which includes taking all the minors out of the room.