Nice premise, some funny moments, but overall flat

Rating: 4/10 (10 March 2001)

There's some stuff to like about American Psycho. It has really genuinely funny moments in the film that I liked. When Christian Bale's character starts talking about music, it's a gutbuster. The business card stuff was great. There are plenty of others as well that show good humor and sharp wit.
Also, the 80s timeframe set for this movie was a good choice for the strange clique that Bale's character keeps. His interaction with his friends is great. The notion of this unstable psychopath milling about (and strangely fitting in with) these stiff businessmen with their rigid routine is pretty original.
Unfortunately for American Psycho, these weren't enough. They added some nice spice to the film, but man cannot enjoy basil alone. Watching this movie is like eating bread dough with some rosemary on top. You can detect some interesting stuff in there, but it's bland for the most part. Most of the time spent watching this movie I was glancing at my watch seeing how much longer I had left to wait till it was done.
Baseline is that American Psycho has some good parts, but you have to sit through the rest of the movie to get to them. It gets a 4 because of these good parts, but I can't rate it as average or above because the rest was just so plodding. yawn