Good enough to take a painkiller over!

Rating: 7/10 (15 June 2000)

American Psycho is based on Bret Easton Ellis' novel and I haven't even read it. But from they people that did not many really liked it, as it was highly controversial. When news came out that a movie was being made the controversy started again with groups wanting to boycott this film!
Do I care? Do you? Seeing a guy running down a corridor wearing nothing but trainers and waving a chainsaw is something you'll probably only see in this movie and that's what matters the most here! Well. maybe!
The film basically is set in the 80's and tells us about the character Patrick Bateman, a guy who seems to be losing control of himself and is killing lots of people! Moving away from the basic premise. no wait, that's pretty much it! So the plot is very thin, but there's more to this then you might think.
Patrick Batemen is a Wall Street broker who never really seems to be busy. He has a girlfriend Evelyn (Witherspoon), a very classy apartment, takes frequent trips to exclusive restaurants, and has an average business card. Bateman also has another side to him, this being killing people when he has the time, and he has a lot of it! Christian Bales performance is outstanding as we're invited to look into Patrick Batemens life, someone who is out of control with his life and losing himself, yet he still manages to get away with it by showing himself as the guy you see going to work. Also the films portrayal of the 80's gives you a lot to laugh about! The clothes, the music, the people, the technology. How just about everything in the 80's was quite crap really. Batemen going on endlessly about his knowledge of music being one point!
I'm sure most people out there will see this as one of those violent movies with no point at all. How very wrong they are. There isn't as much violence as you might think, with the camera panning away from extreme shots, yet this still might be likely to offend. As for being classed as a slasher or horror movie, this is more in fact a comedy then anything else with the movie making fun of the setting and it's characters, mainly Patrick Batemen. But really the situations and dialogue all raise a laugh somewhere as well as a shock. Its use of mistaken identity seems to be the films point as to how everyone is someone, but no one fully knows anyone at all with people easily being mistaken for others. The ending is a little perplexing and it makes the whole thing feel unfinished as to whether Batemen did these murders or were they just something he made up? Checking the Internet Movie Database message for this film will show a range of topics with most deciding the "did he" or "didn't he" argument. On the whole other cast members put in a worthy performance but they don't match up to that of Christian Bale!
The film is great, sharply funny and a little hard on the head after leaving the cinema. But still I can't help feeling that there should have been more.
My rating - 7 out of 10