American Psycho (2000)

American Psycho
3 and 1/2 Stars (Out of 4)
Reviewed by Mac VerStandig
critic@moviereviews.org
http://www.moviereviews.org
April 14, 2000
---Film opens nationwide today---

---A copy of this review can be found at http://www.moviereviews.org/american_psycho.htm ---

Rarely has a film so funny, chilling and revealing as American Psycho graced the silver screen. Mary Harron crosses certain borders in this equally highbrow and gruesome study of the ultimate Reagan yuppie that few directors have been brave enough to venture across before. Above all else, it is most frightening that the film's funniest moments aren't the liquor-drenched cocktail parties at which we are accustomed to laughing, but rather the gruesome murders at which audiences have traditionally cringed.

Much like Alfred Hitchcock, Harron chooses to film her love and murder scenes in an almost identical manner. The protagonist, Patrick Bateman (a wonderfully eerie Christian Bail), controls these parts of the movie, gaining equal pleasure from sexual gratification and terminating life. Bateman is always more comfortable than the women with whom he is having sex, or the person he is killing, so he is able to pay meticulous attention to the details of such acts. He knows which positions are the most arousing and he knows which techniques make less of a mess than others.

Yet, the film's main character isn't a master at either practice. He leaves sexual partners in distress and is occasionally conflicted about murders. Bateman isn't perfect. Rather, he is an egotistical Harvard graduate with salon quality facial products and a deep envy for those with finer business cards or a more expensive apartment than his.

American Psycho opens with black credits set against a white background and what appears to be blood dripping down the screen. The red drops prove to be something else, yet the illusion remains strong. This sets the tone for a film where many things are not what they manifest themselves to be, yet their appearance is oftentimes more convincing than their actual being.

One thing that is very apparent, however, is the picture's setting. Harron's adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' novel (which I admit to not having read) portrays an upper class Manhattan that only has some truths today, but was very real in the 1980's. It is a place where a person's ability to swing last minute reservations reflects upon his status, the make of a suit is often guessed over write-off lunches (paid for, of course, with platinum credit cards) and sexual harassment is no big deal. Given these definitions, each member of the crowd is nothing more than Rene Magritte's Son of Man - except for Bateman who is only unique in the most sick and twisted fashions imaginable.

Bateman warns his colleagues that he is `simply not there' and `utterly insane.' Yet, these words fall on deaf ears. As he chases a young girl with nothing more than a chainsaw to cover his recently used sexual organ, it is apparent that Bateman is indeed an American psycho. He has moments of mercy, moments of brilliance and moments when he appears to be no more than that Magritte painting. The film has similar characteristics. The audience is saved from viewing even more gruesome and haunting images via several off-screen murders; some plot devices have grown tired since being used in Wall Street, Glengarry Glen Ross, Boiler Room, and other like films and consequently lack the much needed freshness. But, at the end, it is the moments when the movie achieves brilliance that stand out. Still, to many audiences not prepared for such an intellectual bloodbath, the image portrayed may well be that of insanity.