Claustophically compelling

Rating: Null/10 (31 May 2000)

Based on Bret Easton Ellis' bleak satirical novel of the same name, Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol) makes a valiant attempt to make the graphical horror of the book into a censor-friendly comment on the hedonistic coke-fuelled 80's world of the psychotic protagonist, Wall Street broker Patrick Bateman.
Through arty camera work and intense monologues, Harron plays up the satire of Bateman's character with his obsession with business cards and designer clothes which border on fetish. The film effectively builds up the claustrophobia of a world with such intensity that you begin to empathise with Bateman's mania, a world where you are judged on your credit card and your ability to get a reservation in a swanky restaurant. The violence is mixed with jet-black humour, (in one scene Bateman dances to Huey Lewis before attacking a victim with an axe). Frustrated by his self-obsessed girlfriend Evelyn (Reese Witherspoon) and his floosy mistress Courtney (Samantha Mathis), Bateman Bateman's whimsical killing spree intensifies as his violence spills onto the street and his psychotic urges become ever more stronger. Jean (Chloe Sevigny) is his pretty but dim-witted secretary and suspects nothing of Bateman's murderous secret life as she falls in love with his charming, sophisticated facade.
American Psycho superbly illustrates the nullifying period of the materialistic 80s. While the book perhaps went further to explain Bateman's madness and even sympathise with his sadness, Harron gives us an honest, feminist portrait of a male-dominated world concentrating on his egotistic attitude and his selfish determination.