A great visual and psychological achievement. Christian Bale delivers a knock-out performance. **** (out of four)

Rating: 10/10 (7 October 2001)

AMERICAN PSYCHO / (2000) **** (out of four)
Patrick Bateman: I think my mask of sanity is about to slip. ---"American Psycho"
The average filmmaker would turn "American Psycho" into an exploitative slasher flick, but Mary Harron and Guinevere Turner have adapted the controversial novel by Bret Easton Ellis into something unique and intriguing, a brilliant, thought-provoking social commentary thriller.
Readers criticized the decade old novel because of its graphic violence, but that doesn't cause Turner and Harron to give into the controversial material. I have never read the book, but after watching "American Psycho," I intend to. It's a scathing, rare film that probes our imagination and beliefs while experimenting with true psychological terror. It often makes startling switches between scenes of dark comedy and sequences that portray unsettling, graphic images. Director Mary Harron says in the film's press notes that she wanted all but one of the violent sequences to be disturbing. The amount of blood and violence here is certainly extreme, but considering the nature of the beast, not overly abundant. The film calculates every single act of violence, therefore, the victims are seldom random characters, but people we care about, which is why the scenes are so timely and effective.

The best description of the film's main character, Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) comes from Christopher Lehmann-Houpt of The New York Times. "Patrick Bateman lives in a morally flat world in which clothes have more value than skin, objects are worth more than bones, and the human soul is something to be sought with knives and hatchets and drills."

Both leading actors in "American Psycho" have previously portrayed Jesus Christ, Willem Dafoe in "The Last Temptation of Christ," and Christian Bale in "Mary, Mother of Jesus." Talk about versatility. It's probably not a coincidence that Christian Bale was the initial actor of preference for Mary Harron. If an actor can display such a fascinating performance as Jesus Christ, he's more than capable of playing a psychotic serial killer because he already knows the other side of the moral spectrum.

Through the strong central character, "American Psycho" suggests several themes about the 1980's, including society's obsession with outer perfection, conformity, the rising threshold of material fetishism, and the strong desire of stimulation by drugs, sex, money, and power. Patrick Bateman isn't given a back story, however, and the movie doesn't offer his personal history. Bateman has no inside emotions. He reacts by inner impulse alone. He seeks gratification through the sex and drugs, but also by engaging in the homicidal behavior.
"You could describe American Psycho' as a film about perfect surfaces and what might be lurking beneath," says Mary Harron. "Inside, Bateman might want it all to stop, but for him it's a compulsion. He's like the serial killer in M, who says: You have a choice, but I can't help what I am.'"
"American Psycho" initially earned an NC-17 rating, not because of the violence but because of the graphic sexual content. The director's cut is available on videocassette and DVD, which shows the film's three-way sex scene in more disturbing, yet innovative, detail. That's a good thing, if you're not a sensitive viewer, because this film is all about details. The production design, the cinematography, the visual effects, the engaging soundtrack, the quirks each actor masterfully incorporates with their character, and every other aspect of the film is flush in detail.

This is a movie that requires more than one viewing, to experience the surreal visual arena, and to justify what we think actually happened. Perplexingly, the film's conclusion puts the events into question. Did Bateman really kill these people, or did he just really want to? The answers don't come easy, but this is a movie that begs us to look closer