# American Psycho (2000)

### reviewed by
Shay Casey

    *** out of ****

Year: 2000. Starring Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto, Reese Witherspoon, Samantha Mathis, Chloe Sevigny, Justin Theroux, Josh Lucas, Guinevere Turner. Screenplay by Mary Harron and Guinevere Turner. Directed by Mary Harron. Rated R.

"American Psycho" opens by presenting us with a plain white screen and proceeds to drop big red things down across the opening credits. Then red stuff is smeared across the screen -- it's blood, right? After all, this is a movie about a serial killer, isn't it? Our anticipation grows as a big knife is raised, ready to slash its next victim, which turns out to be . . . a piece of meat. Whoops. All that red stuff was nothing but pieces of fruit and some sauce, and we are not looking at a conceptualized murder; we are looking at food preparation. This opening credit sequence is a fine precursor for what "American Psycho" will eventually become: This is a film out to give you exactly what you don't expect. It's not going to be an easily consumed slasher flick. "American Psycho" wants to subvert your expectations -- to make you think.

Christian Bale plays Patrick Bateman, a hotshot young Wall Street executive. Patrick is handsome and successful. He gets chauffeured around in a limo, lives in a cavernous, posh apartment, and throws money around like confetti. He also has a problem: He kills people. Not right away; he's busy trying to make himself appear successful to his coworkers by getting fancy new business cards and attempting to score reservations at the most exclusive European restaurants. But Bateman is frustrated. He still gets one-upped by a fellow exec who looks just like him (Jared Leto), he is still bored with his socialite fiancE9e (Reese = Witherspoon), and his extramarital lover (Samantha Mathis) has grown cold and drugged-out. So he takes out his aggression by committing violent murders, usually in the comfort of his own apartment while philosophizing about the virtues of commercialized 80's music (Huey Lewis, Phil Collins). Patrick likes to kill prostitutes mostly, but he'll take a coworker or a homeless man if it suits him. Possible problems surface when a private detective (Willem Dafoe) is hired to look for one of his victims, and this detective may or may not suspect Patrick of the murder.

"American Psycho" was based on the novel written by Bret Easton Ellis, one that drew controversy at the time of its publication for its graphic descriptions of brutal murders and perceived misogyny. It was considered "unfilmable." Despite such sentiment, director Mary Harron has managed to produce a film version, and she's made a fairly coherent work out of it too. If there is a misogynist streak in this version of "American Psycho," it's of the deeply satirical variety: Harron doesn't glorify Bateman's murders, but rather presents them as the deeds of a sad, repressed man who turns to murder as his only recourse against a stifling world. This is satire of consumer culture at its best. The film jabs at the vast emptiness caused by defining oneself by comparison to others, as Bateman does, eventually letting his jealousy push him over the edge. A colleague has a superior business card? Invite him to your house and kill him! Frustrated with your more conventional sexual conquests? Invite prostitutes in and kill them too! The analogies are not lost on Harron: Bateman even holds a chainsaw over his crotch in one of the later (and more over-the-top) scenes, and black comedy abounds in the early going. Witness Bale dissecting the finer points of "Hip to Be Square" while preparing to take an ax to a man's head (also witness his hilariously stiff dance moves)-never has Huey Lewis seemed so profound. The aforementioned "pissing contest" involving business cards is also extremely well-done, and very funny, unless you're the sort of person who actually *can* explain why eggshell is preferable to off-white.

Christian Bale delivers a whale of a performance, one that may not be fully appreciated until the film has run its course. Playing a weird hybrid of Tom Cruise and Jim Carrey (with a little Malcolm McDowell thrown in for good measure), he initially appears to be underacting, then overacting. But afterward comes a realization that he delivered a perfectly modulated, very carefully planned performance, one that managed to consistently jibe with Harron's ever-shifting objectives. It's important to realize that Bale is not so much playing a person as he is a representation of a specific kind of person, one who has put material gain above all else. His facial ticks and voice inflections are meant to confuse initially and illuminate afterward -- many of the choices Bale makes don't appear to have a clear meaning until after the end credits begin to roll. Bale is also surrounded by a capable supporting cast, including Dafoe, Leto, Witherspoon, Mathis, and Chloe Sevigny as Bateman's insecure secretary. Their performances generally range from "good" to "excellent," and their efforts help the film a great deal.

It's important to realize that Harron's film is one that requires a certain investment from the audience to be effective. It is not enough to sit back and demand entertainment from "American Psycho." Only the attentive viewer will be rewarded, and nowhere is this more evident than in the final suggestion that none of Bateman's murders actually happened. This is not certain-the script (by Harron and Guinevere Turner) is ambiguous enough to allow for multiple possibilities-but it helps to explain certain formerly inexplicable occurrences. No one hears Bateman comment about wanting to kill people or being in the business of "murders and executions, mostly" (a model hears it as "mergers and acquisitions," and I'll leave interpretation of the wordplay up to you). But maybe no one hears because he never actually said it. That would also explain why no one in his apartment building complains about screaming women running down the halls while chased by naked men with chainsaws, and why our boy Patrick is somehow able to blow up a cop car with a handgun. The argument over whether or not Bateman imagined all his murders is not, as some critics have suggested, pointless. An entirely new dimension is added to the film once you consider Patrick a repressed loser who only wishes he were someone as cool as a serial killer. It better supports a point Harron seems to be making here: A person need not be a murderer to be a "psycho." He just needs to be insane. Bateman's crisis isn't resolved either; by film's end, he still hasn't escaped from his shell. This is not an exit.

"American Psycho" has its share of problems: It repeats itself too much and seems to consider itself far more important than it actually is. I'm also wondering why it had to be set specifically in the 80's. The satire is universal enough to be applied to many a time period, so specificity only makes the film feel dated. It would probably have been better to set "American Psycho" in an invented world that doesn't actively suggest any particular time or place, a la "A Clockwork Orange" or "Fight Club." Still, "American Psycho" must be given attention despite its problems. It's deeper than it appears, far less bloody than advertised, and also begs an interesting question: Does all that 80's music help make one a better murderer? Notice how Patrick Bateman only actually succeeds at (or imagines succeeding at) killing someone after listening to music. Considering his taste, it's not surprising. Heck, if I listened to Phil Collins every day, I might be about ready to kill someone too.

    -reviewed by Shay Casey

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