American Psycho (2000) Review

Tagline: No Introduction Necessary.

American Psycho (2000) Review

 

Before Christian Bale took on the role of the suave billionaire Bruce Wayne for Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, he played another character of similar socioeconomic status, but instead of donning a cape and cowl at night to fight crime as Batman, this character does the opposite and commits the crimes (murdering innocent people).

Patrick Bateman is a New York investment banker, but we never really get a glimpse at the work he does. We see him in his office, interacting with his coworkers, and we even get a detailed examination of his morning routine, complete with voiceover explaining all the details. The movie is based on the novel of the same name by Brett Easton Ellis, which I have not read as of writing this review, but I suspect parts like this very faithfully adapt the source material. Bateman is engaged to Evelyn (Reese Witherspoon) and his friends are her friends, but she doesn’t know about his secret activities, such as murdering people and seeking out prostitutes to use and abuse. In fact, no one seems to notice Bateman’s questionable characteristics, until he murders his associate Paul Allen (Jared Leto), and a detective (Willem Dafoe) starts to investigate.

American Psycho is one of those movies that can be debated as to whether or not it really is a horror movie. Wikipedia calls it a satirical slasher film, which is a fair enough description, but some would call it more of a thriller. I would say it’s a character-focused drama with some horror scenes. When Patrick murders Paul Allen, it’s undeniably horrific and violent and bloody, but there aren’t that many scenes like that throughout the movie. Most of the focus is on Patrick and his day-to-day life as a secret serial killer, and the most memorable scenes aren’t really the horror scenes (not that those aren’t memorable, too). My favourite is when they all take out their business cards and show them off to each other. It’s so ridiculous but played so straight you can’t help but laugh. Most of the movie is darkly funny, in the way that it makes you laugh but sometimes you don’t know why exactly you’re laughing because this guy is killing people.

Christian Bale is great as Patrick Bateman. He maintains that detached persona you usually see in psychopaths, but is still interesting to watch and follow, even though he’s not a particularly relatable protagonist. Music plays a big part in the film, which makes sense, given Patrick spends multiple scenes explaining the significance of different music artists and their albums to his victims. It’s funny and odd at first, but starts to feel a little repetitive later on, and I always find that even though American Psycho is only an hour and forty minutes long, I’m tired of it before it’s over. There isn’t enough tension pulled from the mystery of whether or not Patrick will be caught.

The ending, without spoiling it, is both fascinating and frustrating. The lack of resolution feels purposefully ambiguous, but it also just, sort of ends. It doesn’t detract from the positives of the film that much, and how, exactly, it could have been a more satisfying conclusion isn’t apparent to me, but I still feel nothing as the credits roll. The whole movie doesn’t feel like a waste of time, nor does it feel particularly meaningful, either. 

American Psycho does not stand out to me as a really exceptional film, but it showcases one of the more interesting fictional serial killer characters from the turn of the century. The character fits in the world of the film, and the satire is well done, but it isn’t scary enough to be a great horror movie, and not consistently tension-filled enough to be a great thriller, making it a somewhat abstract oddity that could be placed in either genre.