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Die, yuppie scum!
Posted Tue, 19 Sep 2000
American Psycho is not the gratuitous slasher flick you might expect it to be, what with all the controversy surrounding both it and, for the last decade, the bone-chilling, but sharply insightful book written by US author Bret Easton Ellis.
| Our Rating |  |
| Reviewer | Leigh Robertson |
| Rated | 18 SV |
| Running Time | 101 mins |
| Starring | Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto, Josh Lucas, Samantha Mathis, Matt Ross, Chloe Sevigny, Cara Seymour and Reese Witherspoon |
| Screenplay | Marry Harron and Guinivere Turner; based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis |
| Director | Mary Harron |
| Website | www.americanpsycho.com |
| Movie Details | http://iafrica.imdb.com |
It is, rather, a slick, intelligent and often terribly funny film that offers up a provocative social satire of the shallow, materialistic "me-generation" of 1980s America.
If you’ve read the book, you won’t have forgotten the untold grisly scenes of torture and murder - described in graphic detail, page after page - at the unlikely hands of Wall Street suit Patrick Bateman. But nor would you have forgotten the often, uh, side-splitting humour, which the script, thankfully, utilises with absolute relish.
The film is a drastically pared down, almost minimalist version of the book, with director/screenwriter Mary Harron ("I shot Andy Warhol") and co-writer Guinevere Turner picking up from Ellis’ narrative all the best bits and cleverly translating them into an utterly seamless cinematic experience.
Christian Bale ("Empire of the Sun", "Velvet Goldmine") is immaculately cast as the pampered, manicured Bateman who, filthy rich, works (in murders and executions…um, mergers and acquisitions) only out of the need to "fit in" with his bragging yuppie peers, each a carbon copy of the other. Never to be outdone, the labels of their designer suits, the weight and texture of the paper on which their business cards are printed, and their success at getting a table at New York’s most hard-to-get-into restaurants are the kinds of stuff that cause sleepless nights – and that’s not just because of the amount of cocaine greedily consumed.
Whether the false façade of the undetected serial killer or the sleek exterior behind which a soulless, superficial society hides, surfaces are a craftily worked leitmotif throughout the film. Witness Bateman holding up a glossy, metallic-shaded menu or his gleaming silver cardholder as his warped reflection slips across the surface. Things are not always what they seem, they warn.
Between darting from one fashionable social engagement to another, less frequently in the company of his perfect, but vacuous girlfriend Courtney (Samantha Mathis) than with his circle of even more vacuous acquaintances, Bateman engages in a killing spree to quell his insatiable bloodlust, his rage.
Often preceded by a sermon by Bateman about the wonders of his favourite CDs and the high points of the artists’ careers, including Chris De Burgh and Phil Collins, these bloody scenes have a certain lightness about them. You can’t help but giggle when the killer pulls a clear raincoat over his expensive suit and newspaper on the floor as protection from the inevitable stains.
At first as cool, calm and collected as his collection of freshly-sharpened butcher’s knives, his murderous urges begin to hurtle out of control and his targets shift from homeless bums and whores in the alleyways downtown to more familiar territory.
Things start getting pretty messy but, with the gruesome bits taking place just off-screen, the stylised sequences – involving at various stages his hated colleague and adversary, Paul Allen, several call girls and a friend (a cameo appearance by the glamorous Turner herself) reluctantly lured into a ménage a trois in the comfort of his austerely elegant Manhattan apartment - play more with suggestion than with shock tactics.
Willem Dafoe as Detective Donald Kimball, the cop who just maybe seems to be catching on, but still can’t be entirely sure, is convincing as always in spite of this being something of a bit part. Other roles star Reece Witherspoon as sad, doped-up Evelyn, Bateman’s occasional lover, and Chloe Sevigny as his slightly seduced – and later suspicious - secretary Jean.
Try as Kimball might to get inside Bateman’s head - even as the killer falls apart and tells all to his disinterested, utterly disbelieving lawyer – his attempts prove too pathetic, and Bateman is allowed to slip away, behind the deceitful surface of society, into the anonymity of his circle. The viewer, who, unlike Kimball, has been forced to enter the serial killer’s mind, is left with the bleak understanding that his confession was futile, that nothing has changed.
Whether the brutality that takes place is metaphorical – a figment of Bateman’s fantasy world - or real is never clearly defined. Although there are hints throughout the film that a literal reading should not be seen as the only one, it is ultimately left to the viewer to decide.
As far as I'm concerned, it's killah stuff!
