American Psycho

December 9, 2004

Rated: R Runtime: 104 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I’m not even sure where to begin with this movie, it’s not like anything you’ve likely ever seen. It could even be described as an “artsy slasher” movie. I tried to think of another movie to compare it to and the best I could come up with is a cross between Wall Street and Eating Raoul. The setting and atmosphere is very much the former, but it has much of the really dark dark humor of the latter.

American Psycho

The movie is set in the heart of the 1980’s. You get those great 80’s tunes, but yet we are reminded of the decadence of the Reagan era before the fall of junk bonds and the S&L scandals. In fact, the pretentiousness really slaps you across the face so hard that you’re going to want to kill some of these characters yourself.

Enter Patrick Bateman, played by Christian Bale. Bateman is in mergers and acquisitions at a prestigious Wall Street firm. He’s so yuppie he’ll make you wanna hurl. He has the great apartment on West 81st street, platinum cards, Italian clothes and more grooming products than most heterosexual women. But his wires are a little loose, and he really likes to hack people into pieces with sharp objects. Good ole Patrick is the most scary of serial killers in that he walks among us looking totally normal and virtually unnoticed.

Christian Bale plays the character well even though he’s been in nothing memorable prior to this flick. There isn’t alot of starpower in this movie, Willem Defoe is the biggest name in the cast and he’s only in a handful of scenes. And this is a shame because with some more stars this movie might get the attention it deserves. I fear this one may be destined to wear the tag “cult classic”.

For me this movie flirted with a 4 star rating, I really enjoyed it. It settled down to 3 stars only because I didn’t like the last 10-15 minutes. However, I must put the disclaimer on here that this is going to be one of those movies that not everyone is going to get. I laughed alot, but to truly “get it”, I think that first and foremost you must have a bit of a nostalgic feeling toward the 80’s and remember them vividly. This is also somewhat intellectual bordering on artsy, yet it is also the darkest movie I’ve seen in a while. That makes for a combination that alot of people are not going to be comfortable with and will leave going “what the heck was that?”. But if you’re tired of formula flicks and want to see something original and very different, go see it.

Posted by Billy Bob | Filed Under 3 Stars, Christian Bale, Horror, R, Reese Witherspoon, Samantha Mathis, Theatrical, Willem Defoe