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American Psycho Movie Review

American Psycho is a 2000 psychological horror film directed by Mary Harron and starring Christian Bale. It’s a flawed, but very good and engaging flick.

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“I have to return some videotapes“

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Patrick Bateman, a wealthy investment banker, hides his psychopathic ego from his friends. Later, his illogical fantasies escalate and he submits to an uncontrollable bloodlust. Ultimately, the movie ends on a very ambiguous note. He admits everything to everybody, but they don’t believe him in the slightest. A question is then asked – Did Bateman hallucinate all of his killings or did he actually commit those murders?

It’s an intriguing question and the movie surely ended on a fascinating note. It made the film more believable and more complex than it was previously as at first the movie, though very engaging and even fun, was rather straightforward. However, my issue with this ending is that it was somewhat abrupt and the movie was so involving that I would have liked to have seen a longer runtime and a bigger exploration of this new plot development that was introduced way too quickly and in such a rushed manner.

As for the remainder of the film, again the filmmakers chose to emphasize the horror elements and even the slasher elements clearly reminiscent of the eighties instead of to explore the psyche of its main character more. He is well developed and we do get to see the rich men’s narcissism at full display and the ramifications of such a behavior, but still the film should have delved even more into its world and its many themes.

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For the most part, I really enjoyed this film, which is something that I did not expect at all. I did not expect to be this entertained by it, but I was because I really dug its slasher elements, and those chase scenes and killing scenes were highly memorable in their blood splattering and intense build up. The movie was so gripping, in fact, that I found it too short in runtime. The unpredictability of the main character’s next moves made for a very suspenseful watch.

Full disclosure, I have never been a big fan of Christian Bale. In fact, I find him incredibly annoying as an actor. However, this has got to be his career-best performance as he was perfectly cast and he excelled at playing this narcissistic, entirely devoid of emotion businessman and he is the reason why the movie works so well. I never expected that I would say this for Bale, but full praise must go to his acting here as it could have either broken or made this movie, and thankfully the latter was the case. Other characters are much less memorable with Willem Dafoe being underutilized and the women are only there to get murdered.

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American Psycho is also well shot, very well scored and very memorable in some of its luxurious set pieces. The dialogue is over-the-top for sure, but quite memorable without a doubt. The horror/thriller elements are perfectly executed and I just wished for more sophistication when it comes to the handling of its themes.