American Psycho
2000 -
AMG Rating ***
Director Mary Harron
Genre/Type Crime, Black Comedy, Satire
Flags Graphic Violence, Adult Situations, Sexual Violence, Explicit
Language, Profanity, Substance Abuse (Alcohol, Drugs 12112y244m ), Sexual
Situations
MPAA Rating R
Keywords amoral, detective, disillusionment, materialism,
serial-killer, slasher, yuppies
Themes Serial Killers, Unlikely Criminals, Social Climbing, It's All
In Your Head, Boardroom Jungle, Hide the Dead Body
Tones Stylized, Paranoid, Disturbing, Chilly, Satirical, Ominous,
Menacing, Deliberate, Wintry, Cerebral, Somber, Slick
From book by Ellis, Bret Easton
Cinematic Process Panavision widescreen
Produced by Edward R. Pressman Film Corp.
Release Apr 14, 2000 (
Released by Lions Gate Films
Bret Easton Ellis' dark and violent satire of
is brought to the screen in this unsettling drama with black comic
overtones. Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), the son of a wealthy
Wall Street financier, is pursuing his own lucrative career with his
father's firm. Bateman is the prototypical yuppie, obsessed with
success, fashion, and style. He is also a serial killer who murders,
rapes, and mutilates both strangers and acquaintances without
provocation or reason. Donald Kimble (Willem Dafoe), a police
detective, questions Bateman about the disappearance of Paul Allen
(Jared Leto), whom Patrick murdered several days earlier. As Kimble
stays on Bateman's trail, Bateman's mask of studied, distant cool
begins to fall apart. American Psycho also features Reese
Witherspoon as Bateman's girlfriend, as well as Samantha Mathis,
Chloe Sevigny, and Guinevere Turner; the latter also co-authored the
screenplay. Controversy followed the production from the start, when
speculation that Leonardo Di Caprio would play Bateman sparked
concerns that he would lure preteens to an R-rated movie. Di Caprio
soon bowed out of the project, and original leading man Bale was
reinstated. Later, a group of
filming in that city after Canadian serial killer Paul Bernardo
claimed that Ellis' novel inspired his murder spree. - Mark Deming
The greed, cynicism and selfishness of the '80s young urban
professional got a ribbing in the novel American Psycho by Bret
Easton Ellis, the Gen-X scribe's answer to author Tom Wolfe's
broader The Bonfire of the Vanities (it's no coincidence that the
main character of Ellis' novel works for the same, aptly titled
firm, Pierce and Pierce, that employed the protagonist of Bonfire).
In the hands of independent director Mary Harron, however, Ellis'
novel becomes something else entirely: a feminist treatise on the
misogyny and vanity of men. Although not totally eschewing the
bloody violence of her source material, Harron finds creative ways
to ignore most of the gore and focuses instead on the rampaging
self-absorption of Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), a Wall Street
shark so devoid of feeling that even he describes himself as not
having "a single identifiable human emotion." Harron's
interpretation of Bateman and Bale's icy, aloof performance are at
odds with some of the film's dialogue, however: a gallows humor that
doesn't fit is revealed when Bateman tells a woman not that he's in
mergers and acquisitions but "murders and executions." As well as
this dissonance between the Bateman who's seen and the one who's
heard, a jarring conclusion leaves open to interpretation the
reality of the tale's events, an element that vexed many readers of
Ellis' novel. Harron keeps the book's tongue-in-cheek humor and body
count but does not fix any of the book's problems, even compounding
some of them by changing the focus of the tale away from period
social satire, an artistic choice that negatively affects the
coherence of the adaptation. - Karl Williams
Christian Bale - Patrick Bateman
Willem Dafoe - Donald Kimball
Jared Leto - Paul Allen
Reese Witherspoon - Evelyn Williams
Samantha Mathis - Courtney Rawlinson
Chloe Sevigny - Jean
Justin Theroux - Timothy Bryce
Joshua Lucas - Craig McDermott
Guinevere Turner -
Matt Ross - Luis Carruthers
Special Mention for Excellence in Filmmaking (win 2000 National
Board of Review
2000 Bruiser (George A. Romero)
1999 Fight Club (David Fincher)
1999 Ravenous (Antonia Bird)
1997 Lost Highway (David Lynch)
1996 Curdled (Reb Braddock)
1995 The Last Supper (Stacy Title)
1993 Dirty Weekend (Michael Winner)
1992 Society (Brian Yuzna)
1991 C'est Arrivé Près de Chez Vous (Remy Belvaux, André Bonzel,
Benoît Poelvoorde)
1990 Satana (Viktor Aristov)
1990 A Shock to the System (Jan Egleson)
1990 Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (John McNaughton)
1988 Bright Lights, Big City (James Bridges)
1987 Billionaire Boys Club, Part 2 (Marvin J. Chomsky)
1987 Billionaire Boys Club, Part 1 (Marvin J. Chomsky)
1982 Alone in the Dark (Jack Sholder)
1971 A Clockwork
Is related to 1999- Ravenous (Antonia Bird)
Is related to 1991- Other People's Money (Norman Jewison)
Is related to 1987- Less Than Zero (Marek Kanievska)
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