Ambiguity doesn't equal cleverness

Rating: 4/10 (1 September 2015)

American Psycho stars a Brit and is filmed largely in Toronto with much of the music provided by Englishmen (exclude for Huey Lewis who's golden retriever countenance and cheerfulness couldn't be much more American). Title aside the film based on the overrated novel plays out the idle fantasies of an unseen office-dwelling narrator named Patrick Bateman who imagines himself really, really, really, really, ridiculously good looking (as Derek Zoolander might say), wealthy without actually having to do any work, and with his greatest challenge securing reservations at popular NYC restaurants of the time. He also fantasizes about extreme sex and violence scenarios recording them in a notebook in his office. The book and movie try to leave this ambiguous mistaking having a definite ending for cleverness. Of course, others have their own interpretation of events but ultimately the movie is not sufficiently interesting to argue about. While it does handily provide an critique of 80's yuppie culture, that wealthy entitled lifestyle has always existed in prosperous Western cultures; in the 80's it just had a name. In short, for as much ink and outrage spilled about the film, you would think it would actually be more thought-provoking.