American Psycho Review
by "James Futch" (futch AT mindspring DOT com)April 22nd, 2000
American Psycho (2000)
Reviewed by James Futch
*** out of **** stars
I am not sure what to make of AMERICAN PSYCHO, the film based on the book by Bret Easton Ellis about a yuppie serial killer named Patrick Bateman. I knew what the book was about, or at least I think I did. It reminded me quite a little bit of its contemporary BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY. The hedonistic debauchery, misogynistic characters, and conspicuous consumption that so characterized the mid to late eighties are explored in excruciating detail. Oh yeah, and AMERICAN PSYCHO also describes the method by which one may shove a Habitrail tube up a woman's vagina, force a live (and starving) rat into her uterus, and then saw her in half with a chainsaw so quickly that she can see her lower half, legs and all, held up in front of her as she dies.
Why the book was passed up for the Pulitzer is still a mystery to me. What isn't so mysterious is the trepidation of mainstream publishers to take on such a book. The company (I can't remember now who it was) that finally decided to print it backed out at the last minute and so the book was never released as a hardcover as was originally planned. Vintage paperbacks picked it up after that and put it out in a rather innocuous looking trade paperback.
Part of the publisher's anxiety was that every female character in the book is a "hard body", a sex toy, or a murder victim. The reduction of women to objects is so complete that the Edward Lee style methods of torture and murder lose much of their potential impact. Perhaps that is the idea. The point of view, Patrick Bateman's, is so cold and passionless that when he describes crucifying a woman with a nail gun and dissecting her alive, he may as well be talking about putting together a bicycle or a complicated model of a clipper ship. This might be the way some serial killers actually regard their "work". For Patrick Bateman, murders and executions are as standard as mergers and acquisitions.
Despite the attempt to imagine how a true psycho might view the world, the book was only labeled as misogynist and exploitative. Trash. And, most of all, hated by feminists everywhere.
Now, with the film, AMERICAN PSYCHO, directed by Mary Harron, the feminists just might get the last laugh.
The storyline is basically the same. Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) spends his days on Wall Street, making more money than he probably deserves considering he doesn't do anything all day except listen to his Walkman and go to lunch meetings (where the meals are works of art and cost hundreds of dollars). By night, he picks up prostitutes, engages in Penthouse forum style sexcapades, and chases women around with a chainsaw.
Some of the book's obsession with clothes, toiletries, and trendy restaurants is effectively explored in the film. The point is that it's not whether you are important or famous but rather that you LOOK that way, be it because of your suit, hair or where you are sitting at the Four Seasons. In one of the film's highlights, the conceited yuppies show off their new business cards and even though to our untutored eyes they all look the same, Patrick Bateman is silently outraged that his colleagues' cards might be better than his.
Christian Bale is pretty perfect in the role of Patrick Bateman. With his chiseled features, muscled body, and five thousand dollar suits, he looks more at home on the cover of GQ than FANGORIA. Unfortunately, that's about all of the Patrick Bateman that director Mary Harron gives us. Hell, she even gives him compassion and sympathy in a few scenes. Like I said, I didn't know what to make of it.
It's so obvious that a woman directed this movie. I'm not saying that this is good or bad, just different. For example, all of the men in this movie look like models. When nude, their bodies are perfectly sculpted with rippling abdomens and smooth, taut buttocks. Very sexy indeed. The women in the film are just the reverse. Most of them were not very glamorous, and most definitely not very sexy. And none of them are shown in the nude, as I recall. Now you know it would have been the complete opposite had a heterosexual man directed the film. Yes, Christian Bale would still have been good looking with a Solo Flex body but the chicks would have looked like Playboy models and there would have definitely been more gratuitous T and A. Now I am not saying that this makes a film better or worse. I'm only observing how a point of view can so drastically change a film's look. Seeing Patrick Bateman through Mary Harron's eyes is almost like looking through a special lens, which filters out the psychosis and leaves us with only a conceited, greedy, misogynistic pig, not much different from all the other male characters in the movie.
The book's controversial violence also went through that same female filter. It was not surprising that the murder of a male character was given much more set up, pay off, and screen time than the murders of the females, all of which except one occur off screen. Would this have also been flip flopped had the director been, say, Oliver Stone (original contender as director)?
I'm willing to bet a toe or two that it would have.
And I guess, as a male fan of all things horrific, I would have liked the film more as a result. The film seems to have lost some things that made the book such a controversial firestorm.
Take for example the Habitrail/rat scene I mentioned. Well, don't look for it in the movie because it isn't there. Neither is 90% of the other grim and gory shit that damn near rivaled THE BIGHEAD by Edward Lee for grossness and tastelessness. Nope, it all got edited out. So those looking for something shocking, like HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER will be disappointed. In fact, if you are reading this review, then that automatically means YOU, since people that don't appreciate stuff like that wouldn't be on Feoamante.com in the first place!!
Yeah, most of us horror fans are likely to feel a tad let down. The previews and posters looked great but the film itself is too watered down. And I felt this odd sinking feeling at the insinuated possibility that the murders might have all been "just a dream", which, to me, is a really chicken shit way out! And Willem Defoe's bit as a detective searching for one of Bateman's victims seemed rather pointless, since it never went anywhere.
But as just an "ordinary film", Harron does a competent job. Patrick Bateman's apartment, for example, is beautifully realized from the novel. The obsessive pursuit of the status quo is effectively done. There are some nice parts with laugh out loud black humor. And the casting is mostly top of the line. Christian Bale is perfect, PERFECT as Patrick Bateman. Leonardo DeCaprio was actually offered the role at one point during the negotiations.
Now THAT would have been true horror.
American Psycho (2000)
Directed by
Mary Harron
Based on the book by Bret Easton Ellis
Christian Bale .... Patrick Bateman
Willem Dafoe .... Donald Kimball
Jared Leto .... Paul Allen
Reese Witherspoon .... Evelyn Williams
Samantha Mathis .... Courtney Rawlinson
Chloë Sevigny .... Jean
Justin Theroux .... Timothy Bryce
Josh Lucas .... Craig McDermott
Guinevere Turner .... Elizabeth
Matt Ross (I) .... Luis Carruthers
William Sage .... David Van Patten
Cara Seymour .... Christie
MPAA: Rated R for strong violence, sexuality, drug use and language. Runtime: USA:97 / UK:101 / Germany:102 (Berlin film festival) Country: Canada / USA
Language: English
Color: Color
Certification: USA:R / UK:18 / Australia:R
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James Futch
www.angelfire.com/ga/figgies
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
