One of the greatest dark comedies/ satires ever.

Rating: Null/10 (26 August 2001)

*WARING*: Please note this review includes *Spoilers*
How many times have you said to yourself, "I could just kill that guy girl]" when someone ticks you off or "I'd kill to get that_____" when your jealous of someone else or want something really bad? About a few million times, or even more, is the answer your going to give or your lying. Patrick Bateman says these things to himself all the time, he just takes it to it's literal extreme- actually doing it...
This is the basis of the book and the movie 'American Psycho'- the later which I am reviewing. It's a dog eat dog world, and he [Patrick Bateman} is the top dog, or he'll do something about it... kill everyone higher than him.
The plot is non-existent. It's about a yuppie in 1987 named Patrick Bateman, he has to be the best, or be nothing... if you tick him off, make him jealous, or turn him on, blood is going to fly. He gets mad just because someone has a better business card than he does; he kills a homeless man because a bum and him have nothing in common except being human - even after he [the bum] praises Patrick.
His motto is 'Death comes to those who are worse than me or greater, at the hands axe or knife or chainsaw] of myself'
I think one of the main reasons I love this movie is that for years my worst enemy have been yuppies, and the other being the fact I myself am a 'Patrick Bateman' as everyone else is, were all perfectionists on some level or we all want to get ahead and be the best, as I pointed out earlier.
This would make a great horror film, but instead it makes an even better comedy. Anyone who would call this a horror-film would call 'Dr. Strangelove or how I learned to stop hating and love the bomb' a paranoid, war, thriller- aka: they're insane!
American Psycho is a satire of the 'Yuppies', you know those movies from the eighties about eighties yuppies and this is the same thing, one funnier, better, and oh yeah and our hero is a murderer.
The performances are sheer brilliance, I cannot say enough about how well they all do. They are like the godfather, nobody could play these characters- ever except the ones chosen, whereas most movies if you know other choices you can picture them in these roles, but not here.
Also the set design is amazing too, each room looks better than the last, it makes us envy it's characters, and that's nearly impossible in a "Horror Film" or "Comedy"- as in horror your either a killer or your being killed and in a comedy you know that people are always laughing at you, unless you make a bad joke.
However, the most brilliant thing to note is the direction. In my mind their have been three truly master shot makers ever, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese, but now I can add Mary Harron to my list, making it four. In addition, I have yet to see a better performance from any of the stars, before or after this film, and I thank the director. Also the fact that you can't see one piece of flesh being pierced in the whole film, and the only time I want to puke is when I see dead bodies or the heads in the fridge- but was too clinged to the screen to care and actually go through with it.
Also of note is their original choice of director Ridley Scott, he would be horrible for this material, you would not only see flesh being pierced but see it fly! Splattering everywhere, just raw human flesh- makes you want to puke doesn't it, well that's my point.
This is one of the greatest dark comedies ever, and only becomes thrilling during the end when Patrick's 'Mask of Sanity' slips and only has one truly frightening scene in which he gets all 'leather face' on a whore by following her around his house with a giant chainsaw, and eventually drops it down a spiral staircase she's at the bottom of and makes a very definite, splat sound, as her body is lying dead on the floor. But for most of the movie is just a comedy (an extremely dark comedy) and one of the best, up there with the aforementioned Dr. Strangelove.