Bale is brilliant in a badly depicted psychological thriller

Rating: 5/10 (26 February 2012)

Attempting to outline the breakdown in human society, American Psycho is the story of a so-called serial killer and his spiralling journey as he falls deeper into his psychotic state.
As a woman, watching the beginning of American Psycho, I thought I had hit jack-pot; Christian Bale, ( thankfully 'Batman' Bale rather than 'The Machinist' Bale), butt naked, oiled up and in a shower. But sadly this mouth-watering ambiance was not to last. After I snapped out of my trance and was engaged back into the words of his character Patrick Bateman, I began to take account of the intense depth of his skin routine, and how this was so focused upon. This was just the beginning of a number of clues pointing towards Bateman's insanity.
Together with the monotone narration of Bale's character, the in-depth analysis of what seem to be meaningless aspects such as business cards and skin routines are what makes this film so eerie and odd. The direction and camera work attempt to capture the mess inside Bateman's head, drastically contrasting the atmosphere of the scenes, from a brutal murder scene, straight into massage therapy. By highlighting Batemans obsession with his outer self, it implies that society similarly tries to perfect its outer body to cover the guilt of the uncontrollable nature inside most of us. It attempts to portray how nothing is ever good enough, and that you will always want more, or something else.
Bale plays the role brilliantly, twisting and turning his character to depict an 'American Psycho', exactly I imagine as director Mary Harron wished for. At one point he even became so uncontrollably crazy, that he depicted every character that Jim Carrey has ever played, which doesn't say a lot for Jim Carrey, but indeed a lot for Bale! However, as an audience, you never learn to like or relate to any of the characters, which sadly sets you back from the film. If Harron was attempting to describe society as broken, then relating to at least one broken character would have allowed the audience to step into their role, however, not at any point during the film do we feel any closeness to any character. Although Justine Theroux and Josh lucas were brilliantly cast , fitting the parts perfectly of Sexist, Womanising, Businessmen.
Perhaps this would have worked better as a TV series, much like Hurron's other work, as the techniques she induces upon this film, would be much more appropriately suited to TV. Adapting this film from a book was a good idea in theory, deep concepts, brilliantly depicted characters and an intriguing plot, but perhaps Hurron was the wrong person for the job, as it just did not work in practise.
It may have been captivating, and Bale may have been brilliant, but in all reality, I would have been quite happy just watching the first shower scene! 5/10