Review of American Psycho (2000) by Robin W — 04 Sep 2014

American Psycho directed by Mary Harron is the film adaption of the Bret Easton Ellis novel by the same name and stars Christian Bale as the violent yuppie psychopath, Patrick Bateman. During the day Bateman works as one of many executives of a company called Pierce&Pierce and desperately tries to fit into the corporate world. During the evening he visits the New York hotspots and attends social events, but this Patrick Bateman is only a facade for the narcissistic and murdering psychopath inside him and during the night he passes his time by murdering transients, prostitutes and other business executives all while delivering an engaging monologue about his favorite artists and music tracks with a cool detachment. He's having trouble, however, to keep these murderous impulses at night and is not found out only because his friends and colleagues are too egocentric to detect what he is.

In spite of the title and Patrick Bateman's name being a reference to Hitchcock's Psycho, this film is not very similar to that horror classic. American Psycho is a clever social satire in the form of a dark comedy, thriller hybrid and not meant to be taken as a serious crime drama. The Bateman character brilliantly portrayed by Christian Bale who plays the seemingly egocentric businessman side of Bateman rather subtly, but he also kept me as the viewer aware that this side was only a role which Bateman himself plays. When it comes to playing the cold-blooded murderous part of Bateman he certainly doesn't hold back on the use of quirky facial expressions, eccentric movement and intense speech patterns making the character one of the most complex and memorable movie psychopaths alongside such characters as Norman Bates, Hannibal Lecter and Travis Bickle. All the cool 1980s sets and props only enriches and helps the films style and by default also the social satire on the egocentric and shallow corporate world where most people can't tell each other apart and where a quite sloppy psychopath can roam undetected. The most interesting aspect of the film is too much of a spoiler to even mention which unfortunately makes this review an undersell of sorts, but the payoff at the end of the film is enormous since the ending is one of the most discussed on the internet.