Not perfect but much better than the self indulgent book

Rating: Null/10 (8 June 2003)

Patrick Bateman works on Wall Street for a major accounting firm. He lives in a life that is material to the extreme and is more about where you can get reservations at than what you do with your life, where conversations never go deeper than music and the ultimate status symbol is the business card. However Patrick Bateman is also a serial killer who mutilates colleagues, homeless people, call girls, anyone he can in order to try and feel something. This film is his confession in his attempt to feel something.
I must be totally honest and say that I hated the book. I hated it to the point that, although I normally take old books to a charity shop, I simply put this one in the bin after I had read it as I didn't want to be responsible for anyone else reading it. The concept of the book was good and it made it's sole point within the first few chapters. After this point it simply made the same point over and over and over again in a very thick book that seemed to take pleasure from writing about increasingly violent murders. At the end of the book I sensed that the author had long forgotten the point he had set out to make and was more concerned with shocking or sickening me. So when the film came out I simply ignored it as I didn't want any more of my cash to go to this hack.
However it came onto terrestrial tv recently and I thought I would give it a try, although I was ready to turn it off if I saw it going the same road. Surprisingly the film is good where the book was awful. Both make the same point but one makes it in 90 minutes where the other makes it over hundreds of pages. The film uses violence sparingly, mostly occurring off screen or in the imagination where the book lavished in it's increasing gore. The effect of this is that the film is much more focused and controlled and works a lot better as a satire on the emptiness and shallow nature of our society. It is set in the eighties but I feel it still applies today and Bateman could easily be any Western businessman whose concerns are so trivial on a global scale but so important to him/her.
The film doesn't labour this point but is able to pick the strongest parts of the book to good effect. Of course it still isn't perfect and it may seem a little hollow to some (but that is the point I guess) and some may miss the point. The fact that a sequel has been made that is a straight slasher movie suggests to me that a large section of the audience missed the boat totally. The main reason this film worked for me was a perfectly cast Bale. He is a perfect Bateman and is almost otherworldly in his delivery, getting the dead eyed look of Bateman perfectly and contrasting it with his excited chatter on music and his sheer disregard for everything but himself. The support cast is surprisingly well known (Lucas, Witherspoon, Mathis and Dafoe) but it is Bale's film all the way and easily one of his best performances.
Overall this film is not perfect and won't be to everyone's taste. However just remember that I hated the book with a passion and I still liked the film. The short running time makes for a more focused approach, the more controlled violence means it doesn't get distracted and a perfect performance from Bale keeps it all on track. Much better than the horrid book from which it came.