American Psycho Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)April 8th, 2000
PLANET SICK-BOY: http://www.sick-boy.com
"We Put the SIN in Cinema"
Bret Easton Ellis’ novel American Psycho was so disturbing and controversial that it had to scramble for new publisher at the last minute when Simon & Schuster backed out after having second thoughts regarding the murderous tale of an ‘80s yuppie that adorns his posh apartment with the body parts of his female victims. Ellis’ book was a detailed satirization of uninhibited materialism and decadence in post-Last Days of Disco New York City. But like Disco, this picture is tough to enjoy because there really isn’t anyone to root for.
Christian Bale (William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream) plays Patrick Bateman, a twenty-seven-year-old Wall Street hotshot whose biggest problems in life are limited to getting a bad table at a trendy restaurant, discovering that someone has better business cards than he does, and trying to find a dry cleaner to get the blood stains out of his sheets. Bateman admits that he is incapable of feeling any emotion other than greed and disgust, a fact he demonstrates by killing hookers, the homeless and an occasional co-worker.
Bateman’s world is full of name-dropping co-workers and acquaintances that can barely remember each other’s names but have total recall when it comes to knowing who wears what kind of suit or who ate at what restaurant last Wednesday. He has an unfaithful fiancée (Reese Witherspoon, Election), a sterile white apartment and a job that seems to consist of reading porn, watching Jeopardy! and listening to his Walkman. As the film opens, Bateman gives a detailed list of name-brand toiletries that he uses to prepare himself for a hard day of murders and executions (a bimbo mistakenly thinks he says “mergers and
acquisitions”).
You may be wondering about the story right about now, but there really isn’t one. Bateman hops from home to work to bar to restaurant acting like a jerk and randomly killing people. The closest Psycho comes to any semblance of plot is when Bateman offs a co-worker played by Jared Leto (Black & White) and is questioned several times by a police officer (Willem Dafoe, eXistenZ). Much will be made about Bateman’s long, pre-killing diatribe on ‘80s music, but by the third time he does this, it’s boring.
An overrated actor, Bale does little with Bateman that we haven’t already seen in Michael Douglas’ Gordon Gecko or, more recently, Tom Cruise’s Frank “T.J.” Mackey. But he’s much better than Leonardo DiCaprio would have been (he was originally slated to play the part but, like Simon & Schuster, backed out at the last minute). Witherspoon does a good job at acting like the girl on Stark Raving Mad, who in turn seems to be doing an impression of Witherspoon. Leto is as dim-witted as ever (who keeps casting him?). Samantha Mathis (Broken Arrow) and Chloë Sevigny (Boys Don’t Cry) co-star, the latter of whom could be playing the same part as her monotone Last Days of Disco character.
Psycho is a real indie affair, which doesn’t help explain why it’s playing multiplexes with a national release date instead of a platformed art-house run. Director Mary Harron, who helmed the far superior I Shot Andy Warhol, as well as episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street and OZ, doesn’t bother to show most of the story’s carnage. The film, co-written by Harron and Go Fish scribe Guinevere Turner, isn’t nearly as graphic as you would think. Ex-Velvet Undergrounder John Cale (Warhol) provides a handsome score, and Andrzej Sekula’s (Pulp Fiction) camera work is, at times, breathtaking.
1:37 – R for violence, nudity, strong sexual contest and adult language
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