One of my top ten favourite films.

Rating: 10/10 (1 October 2009)

American Psycho is a bit of a no-brainer for me, I loved that it was one of the first films during that time (I think with The Wedding Singer being the other example before that) to be a modern film set during my favourite decade, the eighties, and about the eighties. Not only that, it was set during the best part of that decade – the late eighties. The vastly underrated Mary Harron brings out the satirical edge of Bret Easton Ellis's novel and Christian Bale gives the best performance I have ever seen from him. Watching him argue with the Chinese lady at the dry cleaner reminded me of an eighties leading man like Tom Cruise or Richard Gere and to see him change from the confident yuppie with a sinisterly dark sense of humour to a pathetic whimpering psychotic bearing his soul to his lawyer's answering machine is made of win. Luckily, American Psycho goes beyond being just a showcase of Bale's acting ability thanks to the film's attention to detail in set pieces including Patrick Bateman's morning routine and the uber-modern restaurant dishes as well as a strong cast to help complement Bale's madness like Chloe Sevigny, Willem Dafoe and Jared Leto in "that" scene.