A violence, surreal film

Rating: 8/10 (24 January 2010)

American Psycho was based on a successful novel, which led to being a film with a cult following. It is the most successful film of Mary Harron's career, and Christian Bale's first lead role as an adult actor.
Patrick Bateman (Christain Bale), is a very rich, successful 27-year-old man working for a major Wall Street investment company. He lives in a nice apartment in the Big Apple, physically very fit, hansom, has a organized routine, and is completely insane. He lives the high live of an executive, fancy restaurants, beautiful women, recreational drugs, etc... There is an even darker side to his world, involving affairs, prostitution and of course very violence murder. His blood lust starts to increase and can't content himself. He murders tramps and prostitutes, he suffers from extreme anger and envy. He murders Paul Allen (Jared Leto), another successful young man: his disappearance is investigated Detective Kimball (Willem Dafoe). Patrick's mind starts to decline.
This film is more surreal then I expected. It reminded very much of A Clockwork Orange and Taxi Driver, both classics, but looking at the upper end of society, not the working class. It does show a man who mind does break down and his looking for an identity in a hollow world. It is a satire of the high-powered 80s New York. It has a strange dark humour in places that works.
Of course this film has a great cast. This is the film that made Bale's adult career. He has a great performance as a psychopath and shows his talent. I particularly enjoyed the scene when he murders Paul Allen where he was like Jim Carrey. Jared Leto only has a small role but is good as he normally is. So was Cara Seymour as a prostitute who is brought into Patrick's corrupted world.
Harron directs a very violence, but this isn't torture porn like Hostel or the Saw films. There is reason behind it, and she only shows what she has to. She shows that she has a competent hand behind the camera and a decent art-house director. She handles the mix between reality and fantasy, leaving the film to be very ambiguous.
A decent watch.