Mary Harron one-ups Bret Easton Ellis

Rating: Null/10 (17 December 2000)

Patrick Bateman, the yuppie serial killer du jour created by Bret Easton Ellis, is obsessed with all things superficial. Ellis' written world is full of super-attractive young men with secret killer ways. He wallows in his protagonist's masochistic behavior and only occasionally manages to step back and comment on his behavior on a larger scale. Patrick Bateman is intended to be the metaphor for Reaganism on the kill but somehow this message is muddled amidst the non-stop name-dropping and unending detail that Ellis gives to Bateman's ritualistic killings.
Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol) one-ups Ellis in just about every department with her screen adaptation. The fact that many designers did not grant Harron the permission to use their names in the film could have been a Godsend because it forces Harron to focus on the more relevant nuances of her character. Harron brilliantly establishes Bateman's attraction for all things narcissistic in a scene where he describes his daily facial rejuvenating process while standing in front of his bathroom mirror. If you combine that moment with Bateman's non-stop exercise regime and his desire to dine at the fanciest of restaurants, you have a Bateman that is concerned with nothing more than his own beautification.
The infamous threesome scene that slapped the film with an NC-17 rating is a great one because it shows Bateman, played with astonishing madness by Christian Bale, completely detached from the act of sex. Much like Ellis' portrait of Bateman, he is a man more concerned with performance than with the actual act of sex. While having sex with the women he looks at himself in the mirror. He is making love to himself, enjoying his muscular body as it masochistically berates the women.
Although Patrick Bateman is a completely loathsome soul, Harron appropriately adds a certain human element to her psycho killer. Even though Bateman admits over voice-over that he is devoid of any emotion there is a scene in the movie where we get a sense that he is seeking some sort of salvation from the world he has created for himself. After bringing his secretary (Chloe Sevigny) to his apartment, he has her leave after telling her that if she doesn't he might do something horrible to her.
Bateman's sadistic ways are certainly a product of some twisted childhood or adult experiences but Harron does not choose to focus on this. There is a tongue-in-cheek moment where Bateman apologizes to a dinner-date for being late by saying that he is a `product of divorce' but this is about the only glimpse we get into the character's pre-killer days. It's as if Harron is flippantly teasing us with the comment, knowing that we are itching for some sort of Freudian psychoanalysis of her character.
The gore is at a significantly lesser scale than one would be expected considering source material. Aside from one astonishingly executed sequence where a prostitute (Cara Seymour) flees from Patrick down some stairs, the killings in the film are handled in a comedic, albeit disturbing, way. The women in the film do not get much characterization but this is an appropriate thing when you consider that the film is shot through Bateman's eyes, a man that is little concerned with the motivations of his victims.
There is a moment at the end of Psycho's wonderful finale where the characters are watching a presidential address by Reagan. They blankly comment on the program and we basically learn that their lives will continue as is. I wish there were more of these moments because so much of Psycho's substance lies in the way that these men are seen as products of the society that was created under Reagan's America. Bateman's soul is one that is consumed by greed and it seems that he has been given a second chance by film's end. Whether he will take this exit or continue this masquerade is open to interpretation and perhaps dependent on whatever political shift should sway the nation.