American Psycho Reviews

(MU) Sick and neat, a surprise revisiting this underrated film. The obsessions of class (the quality of business cards is amazing, the restairant reservations) are as sick as the fantasies (you don't know they are) of psycho killing...

Starts really nicely, then shows its flaws slowly but surely and it the end trainwrecks into a complete disaster

'American Psycho' is NOT a slasher movie. It is a depiction, a fantasy if you will, of the life of modern man and his place in society.

Nothing is enough. Money, sex, social stature, there is always someone else who has more and everyone else expect from you to try harder for even more.

This movie is about eliminating competition the easy way. By killing your opponents. By eating your sexual partners. By destroying everyone around you.

'American Psycho' retains the balance between this psychotic state, a chilling thriller and a very funny movie.

The scenes that show Patrick playing music for his guests are absolutely hilarious, as he comments very seriously on records by artists such as Whitney Houston, Phil Collins and Huey Lewis & the News. The funny thing is that he chooses the most commercial or sold out records of these artists, to explain how much better they are compared to their previous, more artistic work. Another message of the state of the receivers of commercial art.

You can analyze 'American Psycho' for hours. It can be perceived both as a deep and a fun movie. Even if you don't like the story, you will love Christian Bale's excellent performance.

Enjoy.

10/10

Uno de los mejores slashers creados.Tiene todas las características del genero:violencia,asesinos psicópatas,sexo,drogas etc.
Ademas mezcla todo eso con un humor negro inteligente y una buena sátira,recomendado para los fans más aférrimos del género.

PUNTUACIÓN:8,5 de 10

While watching American Psycho I had a bit of a thought, “literal” truth does not matter in stories where the perspective is skewered in several different directions. That is to say, it does not matter if Patrick Bateman is actually murdering any of these people or behaving this badly, he believes that he is, and that is all that matters. A literal truth would probably be hard to distinguish from his perspective and the world that he inhabits.

If one must think of it in a way that gives a concrete answer, I would say that at least one of the murders in this story is true, and the rest is the product of his feverish imagination and quickly disintegrating psyche. There’s plenty of ammunition for both camps to explore whether or not what the film shows us is really happening or not, but that’s not an interesting point of debate. A film like American Psycho gives us a rich and disturbing text, then asks us why we think what we do as we walk away from it. An argument over “yes” or “no” should be the beginning of the discussion, not the end point.

The first time I viewed the film, at the far too young age of thirteen, I didn’t know what the hell I had just watched. I only knew that what I watched had taken place in the very dark, scary mind of an incredibly attractive man. Returning to it, I expected for that original thought to be reinforced. I guess in a way, it was, but in a deeper way, I discovered that I didn’t care much whether or not he really did it. Bateman believes that he has entirely committed these acts, spoken about them, cried for help, and been met with gross indifference. American Psycho was oddly prescient in detailing an American landscape in which the very wealthy get off freely by arguing that they’re too affluent for jail time. Hell, half the time they don’t even have to be rich, they just have to be white.

White privilege, particularly the virulently hyper-masculine, extremely wealthy, heterosexual kind, is taken to task in a world where no one can distinguish each other from the next person, and business cards are treated like a dick measuring contest. This doesn’t even begin to cover the hilarity that ensues from trying to get restaurants to reserve you a table, something which is treated with a seriousness and severity that it approaches religious fundamentalism in its single-minded oppressiveness.

And walking us through this satirical world is Christian Bale’s unbelievably good work as Bateman. When playing serial killers or highly unlikeable people, most actors will try to find a way to give them at least one sympathetic moment. Bette Davis’ final scene in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane springs to mind. So does how endearingly nervous and sweet Norman Bates is upon first blush in Psycho. None of that is existent here in Bale’s work. Any moments of kindness or self-reflection feel like errors in his coding. Bale and the film-makers see Bateman clearly, and the type of men he symbolizes, and they hate him, skewer and satirize him endlessly. And perhaps it required a female director, Mary Harron here, to see clearly such a terrible man and the fragility of the entitled male ego and take it to task, over and over again.

Harron asked what's more unnerving - the exaggerated violence some imagine or the vacuous reality some want to be real, psychosis as much in the construct as the character. Fashion and music change, but not the debasing aspects of image-forming. What's deemed sexy often is unattainable. "Psycho's" playfully perverse climactic confession - a David Lynchian nightmare where even the buildings swallow Bateman up - made that painfully, bleakly clear.

Overrated. That mentions a few Serial Killers and everyone is interested, yes them people really did exist and did what you heard they did. But it's shameful that people only know about these people through a rude, loud mouth Welshman like Christian Bale dancing to Phil Collins, sorry but if that's how you people hear about your history then. You are dumb. Simple as.

All around I was very disappointed, it wasn't as good as I thought it'd be, that's all.

it was a good film just a bit of a mind screw over. The acting is really good, I guess since the character is crazy as shit, its just another amazing performance by Christian Bale. Probably not for those who do not enjoy gory scenes, however a must see for those who would enjoy a dark humoured thriller!

I'd rate this film higher but for a crucial element of the character that was entirely absent - charm.

Having read a fair amount of literature from respected criminologists and criminal psychiatrists (which confusingly holds that psychopathy might be linked to a disconnect/dysfunction in the amygdala as frequently as it cites environmental influences) the one thing they all agree on is that high-functioning psychopaths are often charming, engaging and highly intelligent.

Yet Bateman's character is as smug and charmless as can be imagined, to the point of cartoonishness. The film therefore misses out on the one element that would introduce a genuinely spine-tingling response; that the charming, friendly, talkative, interesting and apparently helpful man smiling at you across the table is mentally visualising how best to dismember you once he gets you home.

Given that Silence of the Lambs preceded this film by a wide margin and showed us how a real pure psychopath would behave there really is no excuse. To be fair, they got his profession right: alongside Politics, Law-enforcement and Special Forces, the density of psychopaths in the financial sector is much higher than anywhere else in society. (This is not a criticism, just a fact that positions of power/control/authority is naturally where psychopaths congregate).

It wouldn't have been rocket science to portray Bateman correctly and hint at his darkness in separate, less pleasant, vignettes. Unfortunately the Bateman we see is aggressively psychotic in broad daylight and to anyone who sits "below" him on the socio-economic scale. His lack of interaction with any kind of employer to whom he must show at least a modicum of manners skips the chance to demonstrate the truly self-serving and ruthless nature of this kind of creature. In the wild, such a man would not remain undetected and at liberty for long.

The film is entertaining enough I suppose on a frenzied-bout-of-violence level but to anyone who has done a bit of reading on the topic it's mostly two-dimensional and barely believable.