Review: American Psycho

       I've heard about American Psycho for quite a while now. It's cultural relevance has been on the rise with the online popularity of .gifs taken from the film, as well as the recent increased star power of Christian Bale since becoming Batman. I was surprised not by the level of violence and sex in the film (I was expecting that). What surprised me was the amount of satire. Not only does the film lampoon the Yuppie culture of the 1980s (conformity and the importance of social standing and financial success), but also the satirization of male vanity. Christian Bale plays Patrick Bateman not like the Norman Bates type serial killer from Hitchcock's Psycho, but as an outgoing, ambitious businessman whose dog-eat-dog professional viciousness is paralleled in his murders. American Psycho was billed as the next Fight Club, and while the two films are cut from a similar cloth, American Psycho lacks the fun quirkiness and impact of it's predecessor.

       Based on the 1991 novel by Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho is the story of Patrick Bateman, a successful New York businessman in 1987. He is a narcissist fueled by greed, an opening scene details his complex morning routine involving a strenuous workout and beauty regimen. In the office, he and his colleagues compare business cards, showing off their embossed lettering and off-white tones. Bateman however is seething with rage beneath his calm, professional exterior. He despises his fiancé and is cheating on her. He is frequently mistaken for one of his coworkers regardless of his successes, and it seems that his only friends are bigots. In order to fight back against the conformity, Bateman unleashes his inner homicidal maniac. The depravity of his crimes slowly increases as he goes from murdering his boss with an ax to cannibalism and eventually to a shooting spree across downtown Manhattan.

       Conformity and vanity are the main recurring themes. Bateman and his colleagues are so conformist that he is mistaken for another on several occasions, during the shooting spree scene Bateman mistakenly runs into a building identical to his office building, and during the scene of the ax murder, Huey Lewis and the News' “Hip to be Square” is playing over the stereo. During one of the sex scenes, Bateman is repeatedly shown checking himself out flexing in the mirror. Bale plays the character of Bateman very well. He's kind of like a douchebag who thinks he's better than everyone yet we can always tell there's something more sinister underneath. He sprinkles his dialogue with quotes from serial killers like Ted Bundy and frequently straight up tells people he's murderer only to be misheard or misunderstood. My favorite example of this is when someone asks what he does and “murders and executions” is mistaken for “mergers and acquisitions.” I was also surprised by the star studded supporting cast. Reese Witherspoon plays Bateman's fiancé, Jared Leto plays Bateman's boss, and Willem Dafoe plays the police detective looking into the disappearance of Bateman's coworker. The film is an intriguing and bloody sendup of the materialist culture of the 1980s with a twist ending that will leave you guessing.