Excellent Self Indulgence that isn't so mindless

Rating: 9/10 (23 December 2019)

I love American Psycho. It's excessive in every way: from the violence to the sexual situations and fantasies, to its blatant dialogue exchanges, to its senseless murderous rampaging violence, but mostly it's excessive in its malignant consumeristic narcissism. And one can't help but feel that the excessive narcissism is exactly the point of the entire film. It's almost as if the movie itself is an actual cinematic-embodiment of the personality disorder that Patrick Bateman so heavily suffers from. American Psycho also does an amazing job at encapsulating all the base desires of the male psyche, and then amplifying them in an almost poetic way to paint the perfect picture of who exactly Bateman is and just how insane he can truly be. And what makes the entire thing so effective is how easily possible the movie makes one realize that any man could be driven to be such an egotistical jacka$$ if given the right circumstances in life.
There's also a lot of subtle but perfect dark humor in the film. Especially the contest that is the Business Card Show and Tell that the men engage in periodically. You'll notice how everyone is a "Vice President" -- an obvious jab at the crony corporate nepotism on Wall Street/big business and how the 'higher ups' are really just useless drones who do nothing. Case in point: Patrick telling his secretary to hold all his calls for the day because he'll be too swamped with work, but then immediately kicking his feet up on the desk and turning Jeopardy on on the television as soon as his secretary leaves the office and closes his door.
What surprises me the most about American Psycho is that it was directed and written by women. It's not that I think women are incapable of creating good movies, but more that the subject content of the film/script is drenched in testosterone and misogyny, so it ultimately feels like it was crafted by men. Then again, in retrospect it probably took a woman's touch to really show the absurdity of Bateman's extremely toxic masculinity and malignant narcissism in its absurdist and repugnant light. A male director/writer team probably would have made Bateman a more sympathetic egoist, and I'm sure that defeats the entire point of what the movie is really trying to say in the first place.
My only gripe with the film is with the casting of Bateman. Don't get me wrong, Christian Bale did an incredible job but its not without warranted criticism. Bateman's tangents into the ridiculous by way of prolific verbal dissertations on Huey Lewis and The News or Phil Collins, while freakin' hilarious, feel a little too forced. And that forced feeling is a consistent issue throughout the movie--Bateman's excessive egotism doesn't always feel natural, and it ultimately mars the film's immersion/continuity. I read a review that suggest Charlie Sheen as Patrick Bateman, and honestly I couldn't imagine a more perfect real-life egotistical maniac to portray Bateman. Charlie Sheen from Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" with Patrick Bateman's book personality would have been excellent here.
Ultimately, the movie doesn't really spoonfeed you a conclusion (although it gives you hints throughout the entire film) and so its ambiguity gives it a more intellectual bent to its portrayal of insane cathartic self indulgence. I'm of the mind that everything was in Bateman's head and he truly is crazy, but both sides of the argument have valid reasons for why they either do or do not believe Bateman really did what we saw on the screen. This and the fact that the movie clocks in at just a hair over 100 minutes and you've got a highly rewatchable piece of entertainment. 9/10 Solid A rating