American Psycho

Starring: Christian Bale, Justin Theroux, Josh Lucas, Bill Sage, Reese Witherspoon, Chloe Sevigny, Samantha Mathis, Jared Leto, Willem Dafoe
Directed by: Mary Harron
Rating: R
Genre: Drama
2000

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A wealthy Wall Street investment banker (Christian Bale) hides his psychopathic urges from his friends and girlfriend (Reese Witherspoon), but finds it increasingly difficult to keep them quiet.

Review:

Tim: I expected to like American Psycho a lot more than I actually did. This is a good movie- it's well directed by Mary Harron, it features an interesting and controversial topic, and it's somewhat memorable. The issue is that the total is less than the sum of its parts. This is a good movie, but absolutely nothing more than that.

The story of Patrick Bateman is interesting and it's presented in a very ambiguous manner. This leaves the audience confused about what we are actually watching. Are the events unfolding on screen actually happening? Some of them certainly are, but others are quite uncertain. This makes us question everything, including the mental stability of Bateman (which is a good thing to do, considering). I did enjoy the ambiguous nature of the story, but I have to admit that it detracted from the satisfaction standpoint of the overall film. Ambiguity can be used incredibly effectively (see Inception), but in this case, I felt like it resulted in a somewhat unsatisfying film. I almost felt like nothing I watched mattered, because I didn't know if it was real or some kind of delusional hallucination. After sitting through the film for 102 minutes, I just gave a shrug of the shoulders. The way the film was presented prevented me from really caring about it in the end.

Christian Bale did a very good job in a challenging role. I know "brave" gets thrown around too much in Hollywood, but it did take some courage to play this role, especially early in Bale's career. Other actors turned the role down because it was too controversial and too unlikeable. I love that Bale embraced the darker side of his abilities. He was very good in the role. Reese Witherspoon was really just in this at the behest of the studio. She doesn't add much. Jared Leto was good in a small role, but it was pretty small. I liked seeing Willem Dafoe, but he just did not have enough to do. I felt like his talent was wasted here. The same could be said for Justin Theroux, Josh Lucas, Chloe Sevigny, and Samantha Mathis- good talent on paper, but relegated to small roles. Sevigny makes some impact, but this movie is really all about Bale. It was good to showcase his skills, but I wish the supporting players could have made a bigger impact on the film.

American Psycho is definitely a unique, original movie. It embraces some very dark aspects of humanity that don't often show up at the multiplex. I loved the deeper study of things like mistaken identity and how the yuppie culture of the 1990s created these hollow, superficial people. It is absolutely worth seeing this movie- it's a solid film and fairly enjoyable. I just feel like for the amount of credit this film gets and the cult status it gained over the years, it should have been a better movie. Mary Harron and the producers made some mistakes on the film (which they would readily admit). This was a good effort, but it didn't land where it should have.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 7



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The Rules of Attraction, Less than Zero