An insult to intelligent moviegoers

Rating: Null/10 (20 November 2000)

This movie tried to be funny. It failed. It tried to make a statement about materialism. It failed, instead betraying admiration for all the material things it purported to condemn--fancy restaurants, luxury apartments, limos, cosmetics and the rest. It tried to be shocking. I yawned.
We were supposed to believe that the characters were high-powered Wall Street types, yet we never saw a single instance of them doing the work that earned them their astronomical salaries. All they did was make reservations and compare business cards.
The lead actor hammed up his part so much that his character lost all believability. Cloe Sevigny, a genuinely talented actor, was wasted. Poor Willem Dafoe. He aimlessly walked and talked through the middle of this mess, then disappeared.
Most good movies have a beginning, a middle and an end. American Psycho, however, was a plotless amalgam of unfunny restaurant scenes, boring sex and comic-book-type violence. No story was told, no characters were developed.
Many of the scenes insulted the viewer's intelligence. How can a killer drag a blood-leaking body across the floor of an apartment-building lobby and never be discovered? How can he chase a screaming woman through the halls and down the stairs of another apartment building, in the middle of New York City, and never draw attention?
How could anyone compare American Psycho with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Next to Robert Louis Stevenson's inspired psychological thriller, American Psycho is a nursery rhyme.