A Work of Art

Rating: 10/10 (28 August 2017)

Scrolling through the 1 star reviews in this 'user reviews' section is arguably the most frustrating thing I've ever encountered because their reviews and unfair ratings are often looked at legitimate reasons for not enjoying this film. That being said, this film is not for everyone and has to be understood that it is not a typical horror flick but it is actually a social commentary to the extreme. That is the most important thing to understand in order to understand the brilliance of the circumstances and the characters and the dialogue that is in the show.
For sake of brevity, I do not intend to write about every scene and not even necessarily the best scenes but I will be going in depth with examples.
Generally there are certain aspects of a film that I look for when giving them a review. For starters I look at the most obvious, the plot. The plot is arguably the most important part of the film. This movie is a film about a young 1980's Wall Street executive who moonlights as a serial killer and a womanizer. Understanding that this is a criticism of 1980's Wall Street, each of the scenes has to be fine tuned to show the different social aspects of the lives of those executives and how significant appearance (inside doesn't matter) is. The film opens on a scene in a high class restaurant. Now this film has been criticized for being an over the top depiction of the singularity in culture during that time but I believe it perfectly. It slowly moves into a more direct viewership of the scene where two waiters are shown at two different tables introducing the night's specials. They are clearly different people (one is black, one is white, one is thin and one is chubbier) but they both speak in the same tone of voice and accent and say the same thing in the same way. Then you are introduced to the main characters of the movie who are all sitting together at a table. The values of each of the characters are shown during a brief exchange and also notes the rampant drug problem and how luxurious and expensive things were with "Speaking of reasonable, only $570" when the check came.
Then the movie goes in deeper with Bateman's morning routine. He introduces it through a narration as we watch him complete the steps. It is important to note the regimented nature of his routine and how much of a process he feels he needs to go through in order to keep his appearance up. It also reveals an inner aspect of his character that even though he appears to be normal and similar to everyone else, he simply does not feel anything for the people that surround him.
The next scene addresses the rampant sexism that occurred. Usually women were in secretarial positions or simply marrying into money and that is exactly what is addressed in the exchange between Jean and Bateman. She tells him he looks nice and he tries to tell her what to wear so she'll look prettier. In the following scene his fiancé is "buzzing off in his ear" about their wedding that he does not seem to care about almost making it seem like it was entirely based on appearances or frankly even arranged.
The movie is frequently criticizing the singularity of 1980's Wall Street culture and there are many examples of this throughout the movie. For example when he finds the empty apartment where he had a bunch of dead bodies he found it white and with painting gear still there as if there was a quick cover-up. Now obviously this is an exaggeration of actions taken but why would anyone want Upper class culture to be tarnished by the discovery a serial killer and property values in a building overlooking the park would drop significantly. It all hints towards the concept that "inside doesn't matter" to people.
The sheer brilliance of the characters is also shown throughout the film and even though Bale practically makes the movie with his character, how other people react to his antics is essential and really an under-appreciated aspect of this film. The directing is also necessary to this as Harron pointed the cameras at what she thought was necessary and it was not always the person that was talking. She often provided a contrast between other characters and Bateman by showing over the shoulder shots of how they reacted to his catch phrases and general disposition.
The acting was also spectacular where in many snapshots of the film, you can see genuine emotion, the best example after he takes the first swing at Allen and brings up the ax for the next you can see genuine hatred and anger in his face.
The score was also great in every scene and really set the tone. The most notable aspect was you would hear a sound of tension every time there was something that angered Bateman
I wish I had more space to write more about this film but I do not. It is a work of sheer brilliance and a personal favorite and the ratings from people that expected a slasher flick are not fair to the actual quality of this film. It is constantly excellent from scene to scene and you never catch a break from something that's funny or interesting or just generally important to the story.