Semi-successful film version of the Easton-Ellis novel would have been better done by the likes of David Cronenberg, Oliver Stone or even Lucio Fulci.

Rating: Null/10 (21 June 2002)

With all the controversy surrounding this story, it was no surprise that it would eventually be made into a film. It's also no surprise that the extreme graphic violence in the story would be missing from any contemporary attempt at releasing it as a movie. In any event, the picture does capture a lot of the satire of Ellis' story and Christian Bale goes all out to capture the emotionless persona of the self-obsessed killer. I think the essence of the picture, though, is compromised without the outrageous, sadistic violence of the book. AMERICAN PSYCHO is not just a mean-spirited study of self-absorption and emotional dysfunction, it's also a view of an alternate moral satisfaction, one based on murder and mayhem and one that was much more successfully presented in film's like Oliver Stone's NATURAL BORN KILLERS or Pasolini's SALO. This mainstream film from the Bret Easton Ellis story is rather cowardly; a daring, disturbing film from courageous filmmakers like Cronenberg or Stone would have been much more admirable.