Gruesome, yet Funny

Rating: Null/10 (6 March 2001)

American Psycho is film about greed, power vanity and how a psycho killer sees the world. Christian Bale plays Patrick Bateman a man who spends hours on his physical appearance but does not communicate on an emotional level with those around him his one true pleasure killing and maiming women (and sometimes men too) To describe this film as a black comedy would be an understatement, however as well as being a rather gruesome film the movie is full of biting sarcasm about the rootless money motivated business world of the eighties. The film uses its central character Bateman as a kind of amalgamation of its self obsorbtion and vanity. He plays vain company stock broker. He engages in some brutal acts of violence and depraved sexual acts as well but the main back bone of the film is Bateman's analysis of his world where he sees nothing but greed, some of his monologues about his personal habits and music choices are hilarious. The supporting cast is made from his girlfriend and mistress (Reece Witherspoon and Samantha Mathis) and his business colleges Jared Leto as Paul Allen and Willam Defo as Detective Kimball also give good performances. While some may find it distaseful because of its rather over the top (intentionally) violence it is still a well scripted disenction of the power obsessed '80s through the eyes of a deranged killer. In the end Christian Bales performance as Bateman and several funny scenes as well as the main psycho narrative make it an enjoyable and effective film while never being a Classic.
***1/2/*****