Chilling indictment of '80s materialism

Rating: 8/10 (28 May 2000)

When Bret Easton Ellis's novel American Psycho was first published in 1991, it was described as misogynistic and sadistic by the humourless idiots who decide these things, so it comes as something of a surprise to find it adapted to the screen by two women. It centres around Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), a Wall Street mergers and acquisitions man, who takes narcissism to levels even Robbie Williams couldn't imagine and kills people, mainly women, in his spare time.
Bateman simply has no soul, no real identity. He merely wishes to fit in and please himself  not be happy, he has no concept of it. Such a blank slate inevitably reflects its surroundings. Unfortunately, these are the 1980s and Bateman is at the top of the greedy tree. He obsesses about facial cleansing, Armani suits and business cards. After he is laughed at when asking for a table at an exclusive restaurant at the last minute, he lashes out at a helpless homeless man. A flood gate seems to have been opened in his psyche and he meticuluosly and savagely kills a fellow broker who believes he is someone else. The women follow, but we don't see them, we see Bateman's normal everyday life continue unaffected. A policeman (Willem Dafoe) arrives to investigate the disappearance of the broker, but he doesn't come back. In the end, Bateman, trying harder and harder to get caught, can take it no more, but his society will not let him take credit, will not grant him an identity.
Bale is utterly flawless as Bateman, exuding a cool that is superhuman. Chloë Sevigny is excellent as his dim but human secretary and Defoe fills the screen as the cop eerily similar to Bateman. As a satire of the awful '80s this is great stuff (Whitney Houston seriously deserved being taken down a peg or two), humorous and observant. You cannot help but feel, though, that the decade doesn't really merit such an intellectual mauling; the gentle humour of The Wedding Singer, for instance, was sufficient.