American Psycho (2000)

Patrick Bateman is not your typical serial killer. He is obsessed with consumerism, and has an affinity for music by Huey Lewis and the News and Whitney Houston, not to mention Phil Collins. He also happens to work at a firm in Wall Street. Patrick is a handsome, young man who is ruthless and arrogant - a yuppie who just happens to love killing people.

I was initially miffed to hear that Christian Bale was going to play the title role, but then I guess I had forgotten his smugness and arrogance in the wonderful "Little Women." Bale is the perfect choice because he encompasses the soulless, excessive period of the 1980's integral to the character of Patrick Bateman better than any other actor would have.

Bateman's life is not all that exciting. He works in merger and acquistions (which is slyly referred to as "murders and executions"), though we mostly see him listening to his walkman in his office. He has a pretty secretary (Chloe Sevigny) and has a group of friends whose main concern is where they will be eating dinner and if there are reservations available at any one of the top restaurants. Bateman's day begins by applying several lotions and creams to his body while taking a shower, working out by doing a thousand push-ups a day, and in general, planning his evening with his dates, including a socialite girlfriend (Reese Witherspoon). Sometimes Patrick picks up some prostitutes and then kills and dismembers them. Other times he will kill someone he knows, such as an ex-girlfriend or a rival co-worker (who has mistaken him for someone else) by using an ax or a nail gun. But who is Bateman really? Is he so devoid of identity that murder is all he needs to bring spice to his life? Or has he lost his soul and thinks that his identity is defined by his consumerist ideals, or the specific type of business card he carries?

I have read the controversial, infamous book by Bret Easton Ellis, though I am fuzzy on recalling certain details. Naturally, the big shocker of the book was the relentless, graphic violence against women - how they were dismembered and, well, you get the idea. For about the first hour of director Mary Harron's adaptation (she co-wrote it with Guinevere Turner), "American Psycho" has great fun with all the minute details of Patrick's life and his circle of friends. There is a classic scene set to the music of Huey Lewis's "Hip to be Square" where Bateman invites his rival (Jared Leto) to his home while explaining the brief history of the rock group and their gradual artistic integrity - the scene is especially tense considering that one can smell murder in the air. But the film loses its grip after a while mainly because Bateman seems to lose his mind, and we can't fathom why. Has he realized the errors of his murderous ways? We are never sure and though I would not expect a motive necessarily, his reasons can't be any more silly than that he feels his life has become a void - empty and unidentifiable. Many other Wall Street types may feel the same way without having to kill anyone. Somehow, this rings false, as in the book, and I wish that the twist ending was removed. It feels like a cheat and makes the whole affair more surreal than it should have been.

"American Psycho" is often fun and at times, surprisingly funny and on-target. Thanks to Harron's almost monochromatic visuals, such as Bateman's apartment, there is a Kubrickian coolness to it, detached and grayish, as if life meant nothing. Even the restaurants look like science-fiction artifacts from "2001" - this is the alternate reality of the 1980's where money and greed were all that mattered. But the film also feels cold and remote, and since we follow Bateman in his violent streak, we never come close to understanding him one bit. Despite some satirical touches and Bale's superb performance, this "Psycho" needed a little more savagery to really hit the mark.

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