I gotta return some videotapes, but definitely not this one!

Rating: 9/10 (14 September 2013)

So many movies that start with the word "American": "American Beauty"; "American History X"; "American Pie". All of them with their own message and version of America, and now this underrated classic not only shows a new vision of America but also of his craziest psychopath.... interesting no? "American Psycho" tells the beautiful, crazy, insane, fun, violent life of Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale). An eccentric American businessman working as an executive of a major bank in Wall Street. Patrick in work he seems the normal rich American worker, but Patrick has an extraordinary secret life ranging from a daily routine with certain quirks to keep things arranged in a certain order; food fads; crazes appearance at work; kill someone in cold blood every night since prostitutes coworkers that he just felt jealousy; and .... oh, wait a minute! As you see, the life of Patrick is one of a psychopathic killer who tries to hide appearances at work, but the film goes far beyond the expected. Director- writer Mary Harron to adapt the novel of Bret Easton Ellis at the same time she tries to be faithful, it goes much further exploring the mind of Patrick 's character more and more.
The film with a story that it could had follow with a somber and a creepy tone of horror movie, but no. In the first few scenes of the film, Mary Harron presents us with a beautiful humor, that ranges from clever phrases to a humorous narrative, and 70% of comes from the mouth of Patrick makes us laugh, that make us feeling at certain times that we are facing a black comedy. Some may consider the humor stupid or unnecessary, but it serves mainly to make us relate to the character Patrick throughout the film, even in the darkest hours.
And yes, the film doesn't escape to have dark and even scary moments, but those moments come through a superb narrative followed with great dialogs with many varied subjects ranging from women-philosophy to the characteristics of the perfect business cards. We even have a moment of dialog between Patrick with two lovers about the songs of Whitney Houston that end's up in the most violent and grim scene of the movie, making us feeling that we are now facing a violent and disturbing film. Such dialogs may be unnecessary for some or boring, but they are so well written and interesting, and serve once again to get into the mad mind of Patrick that at various points where we got to see the kind of person he is and the cause of his great hatred for human being and even the cause of his daily foibles, everything related.
In the levels of performance, the entire cast does a good job, but as always Bale delivers an extravagant performance with its unforgettable character and superb acting deserved of at least a nomination.
A film that goes from humorous to dark and sometimes mysterious, complete with a great script and good direction with an extravagant performance of Bale, makes us enter in the mind of a psychopath in this unforgettable and must-see classic.
9/10