'Eras' are for the birds! '80s Schmeities!

Rating: Null/10 (1 November 2000)

What era? 80s schmeities! This film is only superficially about 'eras.' Although it was obviously written and made with that whole liberal slant and prejudice about the so-called 'Reagan era,' it's not interesting because of that, but mainly because of the incredible lead performance by Christian Bale which applies almost universally to a certain type of arrogant 'evil' attitude; without that performance the film would've been zero, nothing. Oliver Stone (a terrible, overrated, pretentious filmmaker, for the most part) did it better in "Wall Street," (his best flick, along with Salvador) without intending satire! He meant to make a serious film and ended up making almost a comedy because the Gecko character is so over the top. But because of Bale's killer performance American Psycho becomes a damn good companion piece for "Wall Street" and "In the Company of Men," forming a fiendish white-collar trilogy of sorts. The same type of morons American Psycho depicts are just as prevalent today. I just got through working for another one a few months ago, a total and (quite typical)Hollywood A--hole who made Sh--loads of money and drove a Porsche and even had the good looking bitch girlfriend, being an A--hole 24 hours a day. These people are part of what America produces, unfortunately, and rewards, and a film that satirizes them even semi-effectively is, therefore, valuable. SPOILER ALERT And by the way, in case there are people out there who still haven't figured it out: most of the film is a fantasy going on in Bale's head which by pushing the hatreds and prejudices going on in his head to their logical extremes and showing them in 'acted-out' form serves as an allegory for the more insidious 'spiritual' and less obvious 'murders' being committed by these types of characters on a daily basis, now, today, as well as all through recent and not-so-recent history