Unsettling to say the least

Rating: 7/10 (15 March 2011)

So much could be, and probably has been, said about this film. It's obviously a commentary on modern society, but it's also a look into one man's psyche. You will come to realize by the end of the film that everything you are seeing is through the almost certainly unreliable point of view of Patrick as he begins to come unhinged.
I want to talk about the end of the film though, because I think it's what will upset viewers of this movie. Throughout the film for the most part, you accept that Patrick is a serial killer. After all, he tells you he is - he takes bloody sheets to the dry cleaner, stabs a homeless man, chops up his coworker. As viewers of films we've been trained to accept what we see as fact. But in the end actions become increasingly more absurd and unrealistic, culminating in a final scene where an ATM tells Bateman to feed it a stray cat, and he goes on a much too over the top shooting rampage. We cannot accept that what we are seeing is actually happening.
I think this is what is so great, yet so annoying, about this movie. There is no catharsis, no resolution, no "A Beautiful Mind" moment where we or Bateman finally know for sure what's real and what's not. We're brought to the moment of climax but we don't get the resolution, so we're left feeling frustrated, so to speak. But that's what's so great about it too, because it forces you to think about it, consider it. Unlike so many Hollywood blockbusters that spoonfeed you tripe to gaze at blankly for an hour and a half, American Psycho engages your mind.
The movie is flawed. It's hard for me to put my finger on it exactly, but it's a multitude of little things that alternately alienate and bore the audience, mixed in with many brilliant scenes. It's hard for me to say if this story could've been done better, never having read the novel, but it's hard to pull off this kind of subjective reality on film. But American Psycho is certainly worth watching.