This is my first in-depth analysis, and it's covering one of my all time favorites, American Psycho. This will be long, there will be spoilers, vulgarity, and we will rejoice!
Let's start with Christian Bale and his performance. The first time I saw any of this movie was on HBO one night at 2 a.m. I was at a friends house and he was in the other room talking to his girlfriend. I flip the channel over to the "confession" scene when he's leaving a message for his attorney. I thought, "What the hell is this movie?" When he spoke the line, "I guess I'm a pretty sick guy," then laughed; I knew I needed to watch the whole movie. That's when my love affair began. I went out and bought the movie and the book.
Back to Christian Bale, his performance as a shallow, serial killer in the 80's matched the books character almost perfectly. I read he got his inspiration for the part after watching an interview with Tom Cruise. He said that Cruise had a very happy demeanor but there was no feeling behind his eyes. That sounds exactly like Patrick Batemen. I believe this to be Bale's best performance to date.
While we're talking about acting, there wasn't a poor performance in the movie. They didn't have huge name actors. Willem Defoe was probably the best known at the time. Reese Witherspoon and Jared Leto were famous but still not huge at that time.
If you haven't seen this movie, then stop reading this, go rent it or stream it off the web, then come straight back to this post. Here is the story line for all of you poor souls who are missing out. The year is 1987. The movie starts as 4 businessmen are eating at a fancy restaurant. They are basically talking about nothing. One of them mistakes a person in the eatery for another guy they work with, Paul Allen. At the end of the scene the check comes and they all pull out their American Express cards to pay for dinner. This opening scene sets up some ongoing themes for us: 80's greed and status symbols, self-absorption, and mistaking people for other people. Patrick Batemen is a very wealthy businessman by day and a serial killer by night. The movie follows his life as he tortures hookers, murders co-workers and bums, and avoids a detective, all while trying to maintain the ultra-sleek 80's businessman image. It's because of the ongoing themes mentioned above that he is able to get away with everything he does. He even confesses to his lawyer all of his horrible crimes, but he is mistaken for someone else, so his "confession has meant nothing."
This is probably the best time to talk about Mary Harron as well as the actual book written by Bret Easton Ellis. Mary Harron made the classiest adaptation of the book as possible. She did wonderful in her direction of the scenes and actors. Both her and co-screenplay writer, Guinevere Turner, did a great job at encompassing dialog from the book into the movie. But there are 2 main differences between the movie and the book. And, yes, I know, there are always differences between books and movie adaptations. But let's explore these differences.
The first difference is the killing and the torturing. The book is more vivid and descriptive of all the violent things Patrick does to his victims. There are also many more victims in the book than we see in the movie. But for Mary Harron to include all of these elements, the movie would have been X-rated (if you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it, only if you can stomach extreme violence and torture). Both Stuart Gordon and David Cronenberg were set to direct this movie at different points. Considering their other bodies of work, there would have been more violence and gore for sure, but the performances given might not have been as full of substance.
The second difference, and more contraversal, is the portrayal of Bateman's insanity or instability toward the end of the movie. By the end of the movie, you are left wondering if he is actually a serial killer or if all of the things happened only in his head because he is completely insane. The book, however, implies that he is a real, insane serial killer. There have been many debates (on the internet) about which is the truth. After reading the book, I always assumed he was the real deal. But I got my confirmation when in interviews with the director, Harron, and the author, Ellis, they both said he did actually kill all of those people. His insanity shows up in scenes like the ATM/Kitten scene when he thinks the screen of the ATM machine says "Feed me a stray cat." So he attempts to feed the machine a kitten. Don't worry, nothing bad happened to the kitten, but I can't say the same for the old lady who tried to stop him.
Overall, this is the best serial killer movie ever made in my opinion. And it's in my top 3 movies of all time. While I do wish there were more killing scenes and gore, I'm not disappointed in this movie at all. Mary Harron really did create a masterpiece. 10 out of 10... And now, I'll leave you with my favorite lines from the movie:
"You're a fucking ugly bitch. I want to stab you to death, and then play around with your blood."
"I like to dissect girls. Did you know I'm utterly insane?"
"There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman; some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me: only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable...I simply am not there."
"I have all the characteristics of a human being: blood, flesh, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust. Something horrible is happening inside of me and I don't know why. My nightly bloodlust has overflown into my days. I feel lethal, on the verge of frenzy. I think my mask of sanity is about to slip."
"I have to return some videotapes."
"TRY GETTING A RESERVATION AT DORSIA NOW YOU FUCKING STUPID BASTARD! YOU, FUCKING BASTARD!"
"Harold, it's Bateman, Patrick Bateman. You're my lawyer so I think you should know: I've killed a lot of people. Some girls in the apartment uptown uh, some homeless people maybe 5 or 10 um an NYU girl I met in Central Park. I left her in a parking lot behind some donut shop. I killed Bethany, my old girlfriend, with a nail gun, and some man uh some old faggot with a dog last week. I killed another girl with a chainsaw, I had to, she almost got away and uh someone else there I can't remember maybe a model, but she's dead too. And Paul Allen. I killed Paul Allen with an axe in the face, his body is dissolving in a bathtub in Hell's Kitchen. I don't want to leave anything out here. I guess I've killed maybe 20 people, maybe 40. I have tapes of a lot of it, uh some of the girls have seen the tapes. I even, um... I ate some of their brains, and I tried to cook a little. Tonight I, uh, I just had to kill a LOT of people. And I'm not sure I'm gonna get away with it this time. I guess I'll uh, I mean, ah, I guess I'm a pretty uh, I mean I guess I'm a pretty sick guy. So, if you get back tomorrow, I may show up at Harry's Bar, so you know, keep your eyes open"
"There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it I have now surpassed. My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone, in fact I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape, but even after admitting this there is no catharsis, my punishment continues to elude me and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself; no new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing."
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