U care for no one in this film, and that's the idea

Rating: 7/10 (14 October 2000)

Bale plays "Patrick Bateman", an upbeat all-with-it corporate business man working in Wall Street in the mid late 80's. Being the son of the companies owner, he is pretty much in a cushy position, high paid, surrounded by other yuppies, goes to upscale restaurants, spends time in his high scale Manhattan apartments, and shmoozes with all his other same yuppie friends. The only difference between him and all the others, is that Patrick is a serial killer.
There's one thing I can say about villains in movies, we all secretly want them to win. Bale in the yuppie peak of the 80's is surrounded by fakes, and jerkoffs, and other sick kind, so Bale fits right in. Since he is a serial killer, he has no emotions NONE, and he blends in so easily with all his normal yuppie compatriots. This is what makes this film unique, in that it's more of a statement on what the era was like than on Bale's horrible obsessions.
Bale's acting is amazing in this role, playing such a complicated character. The murder scenes are filled with such tension, and the idea of chopping someone up into pieces whiles doing a soliloquy of why Huey Lewis's songs and music is so influential (which Bale's does as he usual waxes nostagicaly about 80's music while he's about to pounce on his victims) was just unreal.
Interesting twist in the end as well. However, there is only one interesting character in this film and everyone else is pretty plastic and uninteresting. But I suppose that's the idea, thus making us feel no sympathy for any of these yuppie scums.
Rating 7 out of 10