Christian Bale falls apart....

Rating: 6/10 (6 August 2007)

Christian Bale plays a MARVELOUS psycho. In this movie his American accent is nearly flawless (if overdone a bit in spots); the tics, the facial expressions, everything - outstanding! You could really believe that he is Patrick Bateman, crazed killer.
However...
He was the only thing that held this movie together. There wasn't a single other character that stood out. Everybody else could have been played by ANY-body else.
The movie really started to fall apart for me when the shooting spree began. It just went nowhere, and fizzled out in a damp corner. I was left unsatisfied.
I will say that I liked the chainsaw interlude, I liked that Jean gets out alive, and I will say again that Christian Bale was fantastic in his loony rage - bubbling, bubbling, bubbling, spewing sometimes but only an implied threat at other times. He did well.
Suggestions I would have made? - I think Luis should have had a special torturous death waiting for him, detective Kimball should have almost-but-not-quite bought it at the end, and Patrick should have died a gloriously gore-ific death.
This movie is definitely worth seeing, but only because Bale did such a good job. The directing was interesting (up until things went kerflooey...almost like an intern took over the script and directing when the shoot-out began), but I was basically struggling to see what so many others have seen before they sung the praises of this movie.
8 out of 10 because of Bale, -2 because the movie fell apart.