American Psycho (2000) ****1/2
Is American Psycho (2000) a darkly hilarious, highly quotable, controversial, horror cult classic? It is all of these things. But, much like Fight Club the year before, if you don't understand that it's a satire then you're missing the point. No one should be rooting for supposed serial killer Patrick Bateman or his wholehearted embrace of capitalism and 80s consumerism as a mask to hide his inner emptiness. Whether Bateman's crimes are real or imagined (as the film's surreal conclusion suggests) is not the most important aspect to focus on. Rather, it's Bateman's complete disregard for human lives—his lack of empathy, his sociopathic tendencies, his obsession with the superficial. I have to agree with Roger Ebert's assessment of Christian Bale's portrayal as "heroic in the way he allows the character to leap joyfully into despicability; there is no instinct for self-preservation here, and that is one mark of a good actor." In short, Bale owns the role in every aspect—from the mannerisms to the physicality to the biting voice-over.
American Psycho had a long and arduous development process when the rights to Bret Easton Ellis's 1991 novel (itself the source of great controversy) were purchased in 1992. Directors such as Stuart Gordon, David Cronenberg and Oliver Stone and actor Leonardo DiCaprio were all attached at some point or another. Actors Edward Norton and Johnny Depp were either pursued and/or interested in playing the lead as well. While it's interesting to think about how any of those artists' versions of the film would have turned out (especially Cronenberg), I'm glad that we got the version we did.
During pre-production director Mary Harron essentially refused to work with any lead other than Bale, and as a consequence both were let go from the production, but then eventually brought back on. I'm grateful for that—I can't picture anyone else playing Bateman so convincingly. His performance is akin to that of Malcolm McDowell's in A Clockwork Orange (1971)—one in which it's impossible to separate the character from the actor. Additionally, it's rare that a female director takes on a project that is so violent and misogynistic in subject matter. Many feminists condemned AP and Harron for making the film, but she has stated numerous times in interviews that she separates any identification as a feminist in her own personal life from that of her films, which she says are not framed on feminist ideologies.
At the end of American Psycho, after Patrick has vainly attempted to confess his crimes, he and his circle of "friends" briefly muse on whether Ronald Reagan is a harmless old man or a hidden psychopath, before discussing their dinner reservations. In the third decade of the 21st century we still see a certain kind of "monster" in the USA, not in the form of the yuppie specifically, but one with a different face and the same disturbing qualities—blind hate, love of wealth, racism, xenophobia, homophobia and misogyny. The scariest part is that Donald Trump was idolized by Patrick Bateman in Ellis's novel (alluded to briefly in the film) and then he became our president. This is not an exit.
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