Yuppiemania

Rating: Null/10 (30 April 2001)

I haven´t read the book, so my critics refer only on the film. But I know Bret Easton Ellis further release "Glamorama" which was quite enjoyable...
"American Psycho" shows a gross picture of the yuppie society from the 80s which is defined by wearing designer clothes, f***ing the other one´s wife, surface twaddle, sniffling cocaine and being always in competition to the others concerning the career and the coolness. Beyond this facade however lies an empty and senseless world... To give his life some new impulses and to escape from this hopeless situation Patrick Bateman starts killing people, but he doesn´t get the hoped-for relief...
Without transfering the excessive violence from the book Mary Harron´s film is less a thriller, it´s more a satire on a glamorous society where people loose more and more the relationship to normality and themselves. In the first place "American Psycho" is worth watching because of his great main actor Christian Bale and the subtle, ironic and cynical dialogues. "Fight Club" was the definite movie for the 90s and so is "American Psycho" to express the glittering but empty way of life of the 80s. (9/10)