I wasn't sure what to expect from American Psycho. I'd never read the book, since a friend of mine described some of the nastier passages to me in graphic enough detail that I knew I wouldn't be able to handle it, but the director of the movie, Mary Harron, is always described as a feminist, so I figured the book's misogyny, at least, would be gone. And it is, and so is the most disgusting, graphic violence and gore (I assume). But plenty remains to be intensely disturbing (though there's plenty of humor... although it would probably best be described as dark and twisted). This movie had a very powerful effect on me -- I was tense and sweating through most of it and was left trembling in my seat by the end. And I know I'm not getting to sleep any time soon -- nearly five hours after seeing it, I'm still shaken (so please excuse any typos; it's very late).
Harron does a masterful job, with stunning visual images, surreal satire, and vicious humor. Patrick Bateman is a caricature of the proto-typical, self-centered, name-dropping, '80s Wall Street yuppie -- with emotions only for his material possessions (he gets more upset over a colleague's better-looking business cards than over the idea that the same colleague is having an affair with his fiancée), he is an unctuous, empty shell. (But a damn fine-looking shell, as you frequently see -- his ass alone is worth the price of admission.) In a metaphor for capitalism (don't get all excited about how deep I am; I read that somewhere), he kills for no real reason and feels nothing but greed. He's even got the perfect corporate voice -- synthetic, smooth, with a resonant timbre and hearty fake sincerity. Yet, despite the effort he puts into his appearance and his possessions, a running joke and plot device is his utter interchangeability with the other young men around him.
Harron builds tension perfectly and jars you with scenes that are horrifying, yet ridiculous, so that you feel twisted and wrong for wanting to laugh. Yet she never loses control, never lets the giddiness spiral into wild camp (only into lunacy, as Patrick does). Christian Bale does an excellent job as the preening, empty Patrick -- it's particularly chilling to see his smarmy, oily smile when he says casually to a bartender (who can't hear him over the din), "You're a dumb, ugly bitch, and I'd like to kill you and play with your blood." As you can guess by that excerpt, the movie doesn't pull its punches, violence-wise. You never see any actual harm being done (i.e., you see the ax come down and the blood spurt up), but there is plenty of blood and bodies. All in all, I wouldn't rate the violence as any worse than your standard action movie, but the intense psychological horror makes the gore feel more damaging.
You will enjoy this movie only if you have a coffee sense of humor (that would be "dark and bitter") and can withstand suspense and brutal (if implied) violence. But if you do, you'll find American Psycho to be a fascinating, chilling, brilliant portrait of a sick man in a sick society. I can't emphasize enough that this is a very intense, menacing film, far scarier for me than any horror movie. I'm torn between wanting to see it again to examine it more closely, and never wanting to sit through it again. I think this review would have benefited from a few days' reflection (I may revise it before posting it on my website), but I figured that since I can't sleep anyway, I might as well bang this out.
Audience rant: A lot of people in the theater were laughing when it was just not at all appropriate to be laughing. I'm not one of those moralists who believes that impressionable teenagers will copy what they see in a movie, but I can't help but feel disturbed by the teens in this audience who whooped and laughed at even the most brutal murders.
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