Equally a great character-study as it is a comedy

Rating: 10/10 (1 July 2011)

This movie is, on many levels, very identical to the film "Falling Down", but is by no means a bad remake. In fact, both of them are equally great. This film is from back in the day, back when Christian Bale had some great roles (before he devoted himself to a lousy portrayal of Bat(-e)man.) I'd go as far and say that his portrayal of Patrick Bateman is one of the best performances of the decade.
As the movie progresses, we see how Bateman minute by minute slowly turns into a cruel, ruthless monster. Already 5 minutes in, we begin to feel disgust towards him, but it is only the beginning. As weird as this sounds, every time he gets more ruthless he gets funnier too. There are even scenes where you feel disgust towards him, but on the same time can't stop laughing at the decisions he makes, combined with his use of words. It's a really thrilling (not to mention rewarding) experience. If you removed either the character-study or the humour, this would still have been a great movie. Both elements works really, really well, but the fusion of those two elements makes the film work exceptionally well.
The way this film combines dark humour, madness, great performances and character study is phenomenal. I can't recommend this movie enough - Moose finds this film worthy of a 10.