A classic satire, with blistering performances.

Rating: 10/10 (16 July 2001)

Personally, I feel like I have so much to thank Leonardo DiCaprio for. Every true film fanatic should praise God that he passed up the opportunity to star in this movie, allowing Christian Bale to step in and steal every single moment of the film.
It's not all about Bale, but he is the reason that this film worked on so many different levels. DiCaprio wouldn't have got near the edginess, dementia and sheer anger that Bale coolly conveys.
On the whole though, this film is a crunching, no-holds barred satire that critically scrutinises the joys and horrors of the 80's. Being an 80's child, even I can level with the fact that my only memories of the era are soothing pop ballads and materialistic struggles that even overspilled into the playground! Having studied the 80's though, I recognise even more, the extreme detail that Harron pays to the isolated, drug-fuelled, uniformity of a generation that would rather have a clear credit card, than a clear conscience.
Violent? Yes. Disturbing? Yes. Gratuitous? Not at all. There's nothing you haven't seen before if you're a real movie fan. However, what there is plenty of, is overblown hype about how violent and 'twisted' the movie actually is. In years to come, people will realise that this movie was as misread as 'A Clockwork Orange' and 'Taxi Driver' and hail it-just like the aforementioned movies- as a masterpiece.
If you're going to read the book, see the movie first. They're both superb, but the movie will make you think of Bale as Bateman, and that makes the book all the more exciting and easier to visualise. This is, in my opinion, a close third for the best screen adaptation ever. Just behind 'The Godfather' and 'Silence Of The Lambs' respectively.
What you have in this movie is a great ensemble cast (Witherspoon, Sevigny, Dafoe and Leto are all at their excellent best, and Theroux as Pryce is a real revelation), an unusual sense of coldness (every shot seems glazed over, icy) and one of the greatest 'madman' performances ever to be, well, performed. Up there with Hopkins, Mitchum, DeNiro etc. How Bale didn't get at least an Oscar Nom, I'll never know. Not to worry, he will someday.