My recent apparent 2020 trend of alternating between Christian Bale, Denzel Washington, and Russell Crowe movies continues with my review of Mary Harron 2000’s cult classic American Psycho. In his first lead role, this film introduced an experienced but still grossly undiscovered Bale (The Fighter, Ford v Ferrari) to the screen.
American Psycho seems like a movie that most people have seen. If you haven’t seen it, you’ve at least heard of it. I’ve seen it three or four times, and each time, I think I will end up liking it more than the time before. And that’s not saying a lot because I wouldn’t say I liked it the first time I saw it and got upset with myself for watching it every four or five years. I want it to be good. It’s just not. The main reason is that it is too obscure. I’m not too fond of zany or batty. I also sometimes like everything laid out before me, so I don’t have to think. American Psycho makes you think, but you have to think too hard, and then you wonder if what you thought was correct or wasn’t anywhere close to being what Harron intended.
I’ve also mentioned many times that I like my comedies to be funny, my dramas to be heavy, my horrors to be scary, my mysteries to be believable, and my suspense movies to keep me on edge. While this movie fell under each genre, it failed at all of them. American Psycho tried to do too much with insufficient material and unskillful direction. In a way, it reminded me of Parasite, the Best Picture winner of 2019. Parasite was a movie that was hard to categorize. Was it a drama, comedy, horror, or suspense? It fell into all four genres and did so expertly through a central storyline that kept you involved and anticipating what was coming next. Also, most of its questions were answered at the end. It didn’t leave its viewers with an ambiguous, murky mess and trying to figure it out independently. Unfortunately, American Psycho does just that.
The year is 1988; Patrick Bateman (Bale) is our narrator. Early in the movie, he is an investment banker dining with his fiancée Evelyn (Reese Witherspoon – Wild, Walk the Line) in an expensive restaurant with the wealthy but trivial coworkers he can’t stand. Bateman tries his best to keep up with the Joneses impression by spending lavishly on designer suits, top-of-the-line furniture, and meals at the finest upscale restaurants in New York City. Bateman exercises each morning before adoringly applying male facial products, admiring himself the whole while. He’s cool, calm, and collected as he executes his job flawlessly. Bateman seems like the perfect man in many ways, but he is not. He is continuously annoyed and will go into a personal tirade or lash out verbally at whoever may be in view at a moment’s notice. Oh, and he has a very, very dark secret. I’m not giving anything away. Just look at the title of this movie.
Bateman’s colleague Paul Allen (Jared Leto – Dallas Buyer’s Club, Panic Room) is his arch-nemesis and bitter rival, even if Allen doesn’t know it himself. He compares himself to Allen in numerous ways and feels he doesn’t match up. Physically, he is even compared to Allen by others. So what does he do? He baits him back to his apartment and brutally murders him with a chrome ax. It’s a messy murder. He disposes of the body, then stages Allen’s apartment so that others believe Allen has left the country for a business trip in Europe. Private detective Donald Kimball Willem Dafoe (The Lighthouse, At Eternity’s Gate) later interviews Bateman about Allen’s disappearance. Bateman thinks he is screwed, but he skates. This sets into motion the idea that Bateman can get away with not only this murder but many, many more.
American Psycho, at this point, becomes pretty predictable in what you would expect it to be. Except that there’s one twist. For as much killing of innocent people as he does and for as vicious as these murders become, no one is expecting him of wrongdoing. Is he that careful, or is there something more? Even Bateman needs help understanding. I wonder if it’s much as he wants to get caught as it is that he would like to know that there is an investigation that he is managing to evade.
But isn’t this what would make us the most paranoid? To know that we have savagely murdered upwards of ten or more people (and those are just the ones we see on screen) and for there not to be a peep surrounding what we have done? What would this cause us to do? In the case of Bateman, it causes him to partake more often in his hobby and behave more carelessly and brazenly each time. And it causes him to go crazy.
American Psycho is a psychological movie, unlike other films that Bale has starred in since. But this movie leaves too much ambiguity at the end. I don’t want to say what that is, nor do I want to try to delve too deeply into the narrative of Harron (as a female director) and her take on her male lead character. Is her view on this ritual purely one that observes a psycho killer? Or is her view indicative of any male wondering what he would do if there were no external penalties to any crime committed, the only ramifications being what he has to internalize instead?
The best part of the movie is Bale. And this isn’t even one of his ten best performances. The script could be better. The film works fine within its zones, but there is too much left to interpret. Of course, we want to discuss our movies with others and what our takeaways might be, but what if we need more nudges to guide us on what some of the different takeaways could be? This film is close to being good, but it could be better.
Plot 7/10
Character Development 7/10
Character Chemistry 7/10
Acting 8/10
Screenplay 7/10
Directing 7/10
Cinematography 9/10
Sound 8/10
Hook and Reel 8/10
Universal Relevance 7/10
75%
Movies You Might Like If You Liked This Movie
- Natural Born Killers
- The Killer
- A Clockwork Orange
- The House That Jack Built
- Taxi Driver