Login
A wealthy New York investment banking executive hides his alternate psychopathic ego from his co-workers and friends as he escalates deeper into his illogical, gratuitous fantasies.
Christian Bale: Patrick Bateman
Bret Easton Ellis' original novel contains possibly the most graphic depictions of sex and violence in any novel I have ever read. I read it a while ago from my Library. Appropriately, director Mary Harron places much of the novel's explicit content off-screen, similar to how the book simply lets the reader imagine the vivid nature of the content.
For this reason, American Psycho is faithful to its source, and for a novel which includes such terminal violence there is still a huge amount of wit and charm. This owes to the book's satirical disposition, with its brazen accuracy and jagged humour. It is in many respects an absurdist's take on an already surreal culture; This borrows the questionable theme of subjective reality to the protagonist's actions and experiences.
Mary Harron utilizes the satirical facets of the novel, and essentially uses satire as a device of ridiculing yuppie culture. Nevertheless, the component which is best suited is that this image of an alpha-male dominated society, directed from a female standpoint, but not an overtly feminist one. More than anything, American Psycho is a critique of ignorance, materialism and self-infatuation.
The cast play it cool, professional, even capturing pomposity and sarcastic tones. Throughout the feature they show how two dimensional society can be; The bitter irony regarding cultural stereotypes.
For those of you who might be dismayed by the sardonic title, don't be. This is a twisted and intelligent take on cultural archetypes, with much prominence being placed on whether the viewer deems Patrick Bateman's sociopath alter-ego a manifestation of sub-conscious monotony or that he is genuinely committing the murderous, masochistic acts shown on screen.
Whichever way you look at it, there is no definitive answer, but one aspect is for sure, that this cinematic assertion is a strong sentiment of yuppie narcissism. As dark as it may seem, there is no denying the indisputable entertaining quality of a film crammed with meaningful malevolence. This is a film which unsympathetically attacks the business world, implying that dumb people from wealthy backgrounds are groomed for slacker success. These white collar machines are not savvy, nor do they even so much as turn a blind-eye to anyone other than their materialistic statements of self-worth. In a way, this is their only means of clinging onto reality, for they hide behind their denial, with a reputable image of self-worth.
American Psycho for all it's violence and sadism is rife with black, dark humour in the form of Bale's ritualistic business card scene to shooting an old lady after trying to feed a cat to an ATM.
Phil Collins, Genesis, Robert Palmer, Huey and the News, Tina Turner, Petshop Boys...All add to what is a definitive ado-lade for capturing the 1980s.
You can imagine Reagan dancing with Thatcher after their day out on the Golf Course, talking about American Psycho and the glory of capitialism always sucking the marrow out of the other people.
The ending left me thinking which was also of note, it lingers, it resides in your mind, thus my review should be doing the same function. American Psycho is a marvellous adaptation and of course, will not be to everyone's taste. Who cares though? I love it. I'd recommend the experience especially when you can scratch past the surface to reveal an array of aspects which successfully embody the primitive subhuman depths of our being.
''There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman; some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me: only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable... I simply am not there.''
10/10
