American Psycho [RSC Film Club 19]

[LimeGreenLegend 4,277]

For July the film club was tasked with choosing a female-directed film, with the winning entry coming from Canadian filmmaker Mary Harron, who started her career as a music journalist writing for Punk magazine, and was the first person to interview The s*x Pistols for an American publication.  She started her film career with the independent movie I Shot Andy Warhol, which is about a failed assassination attempt on the famous pop-artist.  This infusion of violence and pop-culture came to the fore once again in her second film, American Psycho, based on the notorious Bret Easton Ellis novel, and our film for this month thanks to @Con and @Squirrel.

American Psycho stars Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman.  Good looking.  Rich.  High-powered job.  Homicidal maniac.  The film follows Bateman as he starts to lose grip on reality and his own sanity, if he ever had them in the first place.  A searing satire on the Reaganomics of the 80's, the film is often laugh out loud funny and shockingly violent in it's attack on the culture of greed and profit margins that treats people as commodities to be bought and sold like stocks.  Although much tamer than the book, which features scenes of Bateman slitting a child's throat while visiting penguins at the zoo, it still features graphic scenes of s*x, torture and murder, with many people seeing it as a metaphor for how Wall Street traders view and treat the average person.  

As well as Bale, the film features a fantastic supporting cast including Willem Dafoe, Reece Witherspoon and Jared Leto, who are all memorable in their own right.  But the star is Bale, with this performance really cementing his status as one of the bravest and most dedicated actors of the 21st century.  His performance was inspired by a Tom Cruise interview where he noticed his "intense friendliness with nothing behind the eyes".  His Bateman is a shallow, vapid moster with no redeeming features, but even then we can still sympathise with him come the movies end as his total breakdown makes us consider if any of what we've just seen is even true.

The film's ability to shock has not diminished in the twenty years since its release, and, if anything, it's themes are more relevant now than ever.  This will be an interesting one for the film club and I can't wait to hear everyone's thoughts on it, and how they think having a female director for a film like this impacted the way it was written and shot, and how the s*xual violence is represented because I personally think this would be a much different, and a much worse film, had a man directed it.

You may also be surprised to learn that it was turned into a stage musical several years ago with Matt Smith, who was Doctor Who at the time, originating the role of Bateman on stage before it moved to Broadway.

do you like Huey Lewis and the News?

[Squirrel 5,180]

I’ve just ordered the book. It’s been around 20 years since I’ve read it so will be wanting to refresh my mind so I can give fresh comparisons to both versions of the story. 

[LimeGreenLegend 4,277]

2 minutes ago, Squirrel said:

I’ve just ordered the book. It’s been around 20 years since I’ve read it so will be wanting to refresh my mind so I can give fresh comparisons to both versions of the story. 

I pulled my copy from the shelf earlier to give it a flick through, but from what I can remember the film is pretty faithful to the book while omitting the more gratuitous chapters.  Filming a scene where he rubs broken glass and cheese into a prostitute's v*gina before inserting plastic tubing in her in order to get a rat inside her, before cutting her open with a chainsaw, releasing the rat probably wouldn't get past the censors.

[Squirrel 5,180]

9 minutes ago, LimeGreenLegend said:

I pulled my copy from the shelf earlier to give it a flick through, but from what I can remember the film is pretty faithful to the book while omitting the more gratuitous chapters.  Filming a scene where he rubs broken glass and cheese into a prostitute's v*gina before inserting plastic tubing in her in order to get a rat inside her, before cutting her open with a chainsaw, releasing the rat probably wouldn't get past the censors.

That’s the scene I was mentioning in the other thread. I don’t think anyone would want to see it recreated in film format even if it was approved by the censors. 
 

A shame we didn’t get the Tom Cruise cameo though. 

[Con 5,719]

No way! Had to read the title twice! I hope we get a lot of participants this month. This film divides people. Thank you wheel!!! Finally...hahahaha

 

[Squirrel 5,180]

In case there’s any doubt, this is not a film to watch with the family. Send the kids to bed. Maybe your partners too if they are a bit sensitive, there are scenes of graphic violence and worst of all multiple instances of music by Phil Collins. 

[Guest]

😯

[djw180 6,980]

This was not quite what I expected, not nearly as violent as I feared it might be (although I have no idea if the version I saw, from Sky Store, was edited, I don't think it was). Whilst clearly a film for adults only the killings were not that graphic. Most of what happens is not seen in detail and there seems not to be that much blood, given what was happening to some of the victims. All of this was good from my point of view. I don't like bloods and guts, and I really don't like knives.

Christian Bale was very good as the lead, Patrick, who I ought to have really disliked but somehow actually quite liked him. Maybe this was because his 80s-yuppie-investment-banker freinds were all even worse than him and I was enjoying the prospect of seeing some of them brutally murdered! It's got quite a good sound track as well, even with Phil Collins included - further proof of Patrick's deranged mind.

I was left wondering if some of the murders actually took place though. Could some of them have just been in Patrick's, clearly very sick, imagination? This doesn't detract from the film, just seems to be something more to the story that what we see on screen. What exactly happens to Paul Allen (Jared Leto)? Patrick is convinced he killed him, a detective (Willem Defoe) is investigating his dissapearance but Patrick's lawyer says he has seen Paul twice since his apparent dissapearance and murder. Thinking back to that murder scene we don't actually see Paul killed, it happens off screen and at the time I thought this was just the director wanting to keep the gore and violence down, but maybe it is saying Paul wasn't actually killed? There's the obvious bit with the cash machine talking to Patrick and telling him to feed it the cat, which thankfully he was not able to even attempt. But also there is the fact that if he did carry out all the murders he seems to have been very lucky in getting away with them and leaving no trace of body parts nor blood, even though at least one (the women he chases with the chainsaw) happens outiside his appartement in a reasonably public place.

 

Overal I enjoyed it, 8/10.

 

[Con 5,719]

3 hours ago, djw180 said:

I was left wondering if some of the murders actually took place though. Could some of them have just been in Patrick's, clearly very sick, imagination? This doesn't detract from the film, just seems to be something more to the story that what we see on screen. What exactly happens to Paul Allen (Jared Leto)? Patrick is convinced he killed him, a detective (Willem Defoe) is investigating his dissapearance but Patrick's lawyer says he has seen Paul twice since his apparent dissapearance and murder. Thinking back to that murder scene we don't actually see Paul killed, it happens off screen and at the time I thought this was just the director wanting to keep the gore and violence down, but maybe it is saying Paul wasn't actually killed? There's the obvious bit with the cash machine talking to Patrick and telling him to feed it the cat, which thankfully he was not able to even attempt. But also there is the fact that if he did carry out all the murders he seems to have been very lucky in getting away with them and leaving no trace of body parts nor blood, even though at least one (the women he chases with the chainsaw) happens outiside his appartement in a reasonably public place.

Oh man....that is exactly why this film is debated about in Universities. There is so much to break down with everything that happens. Thankfully the film being older and with all the social and digital media, we could probably learn the answers to all those questions from the filmmakers and writers themselves. This being one of my fave films, I really have not dug deeper into the meanings and truths, I have my own theories and justifications for certain scenes and other scenes ... well thats why I love reading other people's opinion about this film to get some insight myself. I will rewatch it....lol....and review it and then research some things and post my findings and explanations. And maybe Patrick Bateman is the original JOKER!!!!!!!!! one can make that argument.....the American Psycho living in NYC became the JOKER. Write that one Hollywood....two billionaire Wall Streeters one becomes Batman and the other becomes Joker. You know what, dont mind me, i just hit the pen (vape). 😄 

[Squirrel 5,180]

Working out what is actually real or not in the film is one of the reasons why I wanted to discuss this film. I’m currently halfway through re-reading the book before I watch the film again to see if the source material gives up any more clues to what is going on in Batemans mind. 
 

I hadn’t watched it for many years and when it was first released it was pretty shocking. After 20 years it still retains some shock value although it definitely didn’t seem as violent as I first remembered. Obviously down to the loosening of censorship rules over the years since the original release. 

[LimeGreenLegend 4,277]

Most people, upon finishing this film, will be asking themselves whether or not any of what had just transpired happened at all, but to me the real question is who is Patrick Bateman?  Neither of these questions has a definitive answer, but you are given enough information to come to your own conclusions, and they're all right.  He can be seen at the surface level of what we are shown, a homicidal psychopath who would be at home in a slasher movie, but if you look a little deeper there is much more to be found.

Based on the book by Bret Easton Ellis and directed by Mary Harron, American Psycho follows Patrick Bateman, wall street trader, as he slowly loses grip on reality, falling deeper into a world of violent s*x and thoughtless murder in both the high society and the seedy underbelly of 80's New York.  Played by Christian Bale in the role that bought a lot of attention his way, Bateman is almost a cartoon character.  In some scenes the way he gurns and contorts his body reminded me of Jim Carrey.  This is why the film works for me, and especially why I think that having a female director here was the best option.  In the hands of a male filmmaker I can almost imagine the kind of film we would have seen; gratuitous s*x scenes that turn into torture p*rn just for the shock value, Bateman shown as an anti-hero rather than the pathetic mess that he is.  This is a problem a few films from that era suffer from, turning the antagonist into the hero, whether intentional or not, to be worshipped by a generation of angry young men as someone to look up to, to aspire to be.  Edward Norton's charcter in American History X and Brad Pitt in Fight Club are two examples that come to mind.  

Instead we get a black comedy.  A satire on 80's comsumerism and the “greed is good” mentality.  Sure, Bateman has a great body and an incredible skincare routine, but he is also shown to be a weak willed, jealous, petty, scared little boy who breaks down in tears when it all gets too much for him.  I wouldn't be surprised if instead of calling his lawyer at the end of the movie he called up his mummy crying for help.  His body, his attitude, his clothing are all a front hiding himself from the world, not because he is a monster but because he is boring.  I'm not saying the film is boring, but the character of Bateman is.  He dresses the same as everyone else, goes to the same clubs, the same restaurants (if he can get reservations), dates women who look the same as the women his friends are dating, says all the right things because that's what people do.  Chiding one of his colleagues for making an anti-semitic remark is one of my favourite examples of this.  Bateman doesn't care about Jewish people, but the image of seeming to care is all he cares about.  Even when he talks about music it sounds like he is just regurgitating the opinion of someone else, a review he read.  There is absolutley no substance to this man.  No real personality.  He and all of his friends are so alike that there are constant examples of mistaken identity throughout.  Even his lawyer doesn't know who he is.  

Even the fantastic design of the film shows this.  Bateman's apartment is a minimilist white box, a totally blank canvass with no signs of real personality.  The motif of mirrors is also strong in this film.  Bateman sees himself reflected in a framed poster for Les Miserables, in the mirror behind a bar, and, most tellingly, as an indistinct blur in the steel menu of one of the interchangeable restaurants he visits.  This can be read in several ways, obviously as a reflection on society, but I like to see it as a portal to another world.  In this film the Bateman in the mirror is the Bateman in the real Bateman's head.  Mirror Bateman is the one who tortures and kills with reckless abandon because that's what real Bateman wants to do, but can't.  In the same way that trolls on the internet will say the most awful things thanks to anonymity, Bateman can imagine these awful things when he looks at his reflection because they're happening in the mirror universe.  Near the start of the film we see him at a club ordering a drink.  He says to the bartender “you're an ugly b*tch.  I'd like to stab you to death and play with your blood” but he is looking in a mirror when he says this, making me think that he didn't say it at all.  Bateman is the personification of toxic masculinity, one which Harron shines a sardonic, unflattering, mocking light on.  

This, to me, is why Patrick Bateman doesn't exist.  And if he does exist then he is everyone in the film.  Bateman is not a person, but rather the personification of faceless corporate America who thinks that they can treat people however they want as brazenly as they want and never have to face any consequences.  Bateman makes a full confession at the end of the movie, but it goes nowhere.  No one cares because he makes lots of money, and in the end he just sits down at a table with his friends who all look and sound like him and life goes on.  

Before rewatching this I had memories that it was much more graphic than it is, perhaps my memories of the book were getting mixed up in my head, and I was pleasently surprised at how restrained it is.  The s*x scenes, which in the book read like they were written by a h*rny teenager (my favourite bits when I was fifteen), are played for laughs here, Bateman flexing and posing in the mirror rather than paying any attention to the women he's with.  The same goes for a lot of the violence in the film.  The murder of Paul Allen (Jared Leto) is again played for laughs, with Bale really hamming it up in this scene as he monologues about Huey Lewis and the News before planting an axe through his head, “hey Paul!”

The supporting cast, including Willem Dafoe and Reece Witherspoon, are all solid, but this is really the Christian Bale show.  I think he's in every scene of the film, and he really carries it effortlessly.  Whether he's goofing it up or glowering with brooding intensity he really gives it his all and shows the commitment to his roles that would go on to define his career.  Harron's direction is fantastic, subverting expectations in the most satisfying way right from the opening titles where we see what we think is blood, but it turns out to be a sauce for one of the fancy dishes that Bateman would order at Dorsia.  I love the way she shoots scenes like the famous business card scene as if they were the real horror, all uncomfortable close-ups of sweating brows and heightened sound design adding a threatening “swish” whenever a new card is presented.  Someone should tell Bret Easton Ellis that women can direct more than romantic comedies (something he actually said after this film was released) but that speaks more to his obvious misogyny than his expertise as a film critic.  

Overall, this is a surprisingly subtle look at the mind of a psychopath.  Not one who has actually killed anyone (in my opinion) but someone who is still a danger, someone who views not just women, but everyone, as commodities to be bought and sold like so many stocks.  The soundtrack perfectly matches the tone and themes of the films, being full of surface level pop music with little to no depth.  The score is fantastic, ranging from brooding menace to light and fluffy with ease.  To me this is one of the rare occasions where the film is better than the book and that is all down to Harron and her writing partner, Guinevere Turner.  They have taken a tricky work to adapt and have found the perfect mixture of shock and comedy, toning down the gratuitous murder fantasies and turning up the sardonic commentary on greed and vanity 8/10

[Squirrel 5,180]

@LimeGreenLegend sums up the film perfectly. I certainly can’t tell it any better. 
 

I don’t think Bateman exists at all. There’s no clue in either the book or the film other than a line in the opening monologue. 
 

 

Bateman is clearly a representation of corporate consumerism. An example showing that people caring about how they are perceived is far more important than who they actually are as a person.

An alternative view is that those who have the power will inevitably get away with even the most heinous of crimes due to their influence. Bateman is an example of everything wrong with American business and the stockbroker culture in that time period. Wolf of Wall Street also covered that same era of excess. 

 

The level of detail described in the book is recreated perfectly in the film, from his skincare routines to his taste in music. You feel like you’re back in the 80s.

 

The book takes his fantasies to a darker level, possibly some of the most disturbing collection of words I’ve ever read. Mary Harron managed to take a graphic depiction of violence and excess and turn it into a film that can be viewed by a large audience. Would a male director be able to do the same especially when it comes to recreating the violent scenes against women? I don’t think it would be the same film, it would have ended up being more like a horror and you wouldn’t get the same sense of doubt about the reality of the film. 
 

 Now I need to go return some videotapes.

 

 

 

Edited July 30, 2020 by Squirrel

[Con 5,719]

American Psycho (2000)

In 2000, I had reached a cross road in my life. The only thing that mattered to me at the time was my job but I was about to lose it thanks to something that is actually mentioned in American Psycho, "Mergers and Acquisitions", the company had been bought and we were to merge, except I was asked to relocate to California and I didn't want to move. I was living with roommates at the time but I figured I would find a job easy but I was wrong and after time I started to spend the emergency funds and I eventually moved back in with my mom. I could not find work in my home town and began to get depressed about it.

In 2001, I walked into the public library to make copies of my resume and saw a book that grabbed my attention...it had a clown on the cover and it said, GACY. I picked it up and read something in it about the cops finding dead bodies in the clown's basement, I thought to myself, "who the f*ck is this sicko f*ck?"

Well, it turned out to be about John Wayne Gacy, the killer children's clown and local politician. I was amazed that this horrible man was hiding in plain sight!!!...that spooked me good, so I borrowed the book. That was the start of my love affair with true crime. Long before it was trendy or popular, I was reading all about the many serial killers not just in America but now I had an entire planet of serial killers to read about and while it was revolting to learn about the details of their crimes, I was fascinated by the men and women who were trying to catch these killers. But it got better...one day I went downstairs in the library and found that they had a nice collection of DVDs and CDs to borrow. That is where I found my first serial killer films. Most were pseudo-documentaries, so nothing was theatrical and how could it be when we are dealing with true stories of people dying. Eventually I began borrowing films I watched as a kid or films I had not watched since the transfer to DVDs.  I watched stuff like Natural Born Killers (1994), Summer of Sam (1999) and all the slashers. I was a kid again. At some point, I took American Psycho home to watch and I was blown away with what I had seen and heard. I found everything about American Psycho interesting. It suddenly became one of the films that made me want to learn more about filmmaking, up to that point, I thought a Director just shot actors on the fly, that is how I discovered the fascinating art of Screenwriting. Twenty-years later and American Psycho is one of the reasons I'm here as part of this film club, no doubt it. It is one of the reasons I care about films and care enough to write all these words out. 

The Awesome: Twenty-years since it's release and I still find it stylish in every aspect which I find impressive being that the setting of the film is the 1980's. From the moment the raspberry couli drips and our minds are tricked into first thinking it's blood droplets, I knew I already liked where the film was heading. I can honestly say that I absolutely LOVE this today the same way I loved it the first time I saw it, so I may go back and forth in time during this review.  I love how every scene is framed and composited, there are no wasted spaces. I love all the creative choices by the filmmakers, I can go on to the wonderful and thoughtful lighting of the scenes , the exquisite camera angles and zooms, the terrific blocking of each scene. The acting by the entire cast was just top notch including the extras, it really went a long way to elevating this from a simple parody into something more tangible and possible. I mean, could you find a better Jean (Chloe Sevigny) to represent innocence and purity? I feared for Jean the entire film and not so much for the others, despite the other victims being innocent in their own right. I feel this film was perfectly cast in my  eyes and there is not one character or actor that I can say brings the film down at any moment. While the visuals are high on my list of things I love, I have to say that even now what I truly Love about this film is some of the dialogue, I know most of it comes from the book and I think that was the best thing they could have done. I specifically loved the confession by Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) the most, I thought what he says is so profound not just for a killer but for anyone who is hurting emotionally. I'm not going to lie, when I watched it for the first time, I was in a gloomy place and the things Bateman says sorta hit home in a less extreme way:

'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." .....well this monologue made me reflect on my feelings, now I knew I was not going to turn into a serial killer but I did ask myself, "Is this pain that I feel what starts the same thoughts that Bateman developed? Do I want people that did me wrong to suffer? Yes, but only the way nature can do if it's meant to be". So yeah, I began to climb out of the rut I was in and wanted to become the exact opposite of Patrick Bateman. I wanted to heal but not through the suffering of others. Another stroke of genius I felt was with the music choices of the soundtrack. From the melody of the first opening monologue to all the perfectly chosen pop hits by Phil Collins, Whitney Houston, Huey Lewis and the News, and I wont lie, I must have listened to "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina Waves for weeks after watching this film. I loved how each of those monologues represented a different version of human Patrick Bateman. His spirituality, his romantic side, and his fun side...remember his face during that "Hip to be Square" moment?, I do. 

The Good: The dark comedy sprinkled throughout. I still laugh a lot when watching this because it's so funny...take the scene when Bateman arrives at that guy’s  apartment , obviously he has broken in and says this:

"When I get to ________'s place i use the keys I took from his pocket before disposing of the body. There is a moment of sheer panic when I realize that,    __________'s apartment overlooks the park."

LMAO. That moment still gets me after all these years!!

While most people that know me thought I liked the film for its depictions of violence, being a slasher fan and all, it is about the messages and themes of the film that captured my imagination. The absurdity of a man like Patrick Bateman getting away with all those murders. What kind of society would miss spotting the killers hiding in plain sight? I remember once reading a negative review of this film and it said something like..."This movie is dumb because what kind of people wouldn't notice him killing people?" Ummm Hello? Does that person live on Earth? The kind of people that don't notice people killing others is us!!! That is why Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy,Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez, Son of Sam, Zodiac Killer and even that most recent caught piece of sh*t, Joseph DeAngelo exist or existed. We are the blind ones because some people really get society's benefit of the doubt...that is the first thing you need in order to get away with crime. I love this film's pacing as it never seems to slow down and when it does, like in the "Invisible Touch" scene, it slows down thanks to the music and Bateman's monologue but then it's shattered when Sabrina (Krista Sutton) is instructed to you know what! First time I watched that scene I was blown away with the vulgarity but I Loved it because it seemed to have real purpose and not just shock value and I really appreciate American Psycho for making the moments that makes people gasp more than just cheap moments.  I love this film's tempo. I love how we aren't thrown into a blood-soaked Bateman and instead we get to see this rewarding build up of insanity. I always felt that had they shown a vicious Bateman at the start, none of his other characteristics would have mattered, like his morning routine or his reaction during the business card scene. Let's talk about the business card scene, I know, it is mentioned to death over the twenty years but rightfully so, I thank the Director (Mary Harron) for keeping most of the film like the book because for me it was more about how these men who feel superior to everyone else still have someone they feel inferior to and that is Paul Allen (Jared Leto), again with the amazing casting decisions,Jared Leto is fantastic as Paul Allen, I mean, for a second I thought, "just maybe these two can be friends." But its very clear that Paul Allen does not want to be a friend to Marcus Halberstram (Anthony Lemke) [Paul Allen has mistaken Bateman for Halberstram the entire film]. Paul tries to compliment but he can’t without throwing a jab in like when he mentions Halberstram's [Bateman] tan, he then asks him if he has a tanning bed and when the answer is no, Paul Allen snidely says,"I have one at home, you should REALLY look into one." In other words, my tan is still better than yours ! and that must have angered Bateman even more because not even his tan is better than Paul Allen's, not even his tan. LMFAO. But Paul Allen makes things worse for himself as he actually criticizes Patrick Bateman without realizing he is having dinner with him. I could go on about so many other scenes but that would make this go on forever. 

The Bad: The only thing I hate about this film is when they try to show it on television and they mutilate the sh*t out of it so sensitive people can watch it and hate it because its not for them, its for people like me. People that understand our own human emotions, the powerful and the weak ones. Cinematic wise, I still haven't found anything I dislike, perhaps the cop car scene is the weakest if I had to choose one because I think the filmmaker exaggerated that moment too much which cemented the debate of whether what we saw was real or not. Was Patrick Bateman real or did he imagine all of it?, you know, that debate. This ambiguity was not intentional if you can believe that and the filmmaker herself has expressed regret on not making it more clear in her film, I will include that clip below. The only other minor thing was the "OMG where'd you get that overnight bag?" scene, we see a trail of blood and then once outside it seems to have disappeared. Probably not a big deal as one could assume that the body part stopped bleeding just as he gets outside. Or it could have been a total continuity mistake from the scene being shot on multiple days. Again, I'm trying to find something that bothered me but I can't. 

The Ugly: The debate of whether Patrick Bateman was real or not. After I watched American Psycho for the first time, I watched it twice more before retiring it for other DVDs from the library. After finally landing a job and getting internet at home, I finally stumbled on the American Psycho community online and read how much venom this debate had behind it. I never felt there was a right or wrong answer so I never joined in the debate and honestly for twenty-years, I never cared to research the truth. I felt that the power and allure of American Psycho for people like me that loved it was in it's individual personal meaning and not some collective agreed upon meaning. If American Psycho was stupid to you because in the end you concluded that it was all his imagination, I would have never fought you or never will, [even if I now know the answer to the debate, as far as the film goes, I did not go as far as to research what Bret Easton Ellis had to say, just what Mary Harron thought about the subject] because I know people that thought the film was all in his imagination but loved it just as much as I did. And trust me, I see the same things you see, the cop car, Paul Allen's apartment, Bateman's own monologue, lack of interest by police to the other Bateman murders, and I will explain more in detail how I viewed those moments in the Final Verdict section of this review. For now I will say that for me it was easy which side of the debate I was on...to me Patrick Bateman was real because I was connecting with  some of what Bateman was feeling when he says in his monologue:

"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." .........that is how I felt after every job interview rejection, they would shake my hand and feel flesh but I was already checked out, I hadn't gotten the job. "I wasn't really there".  All those true crime and serial killer books had now given me insight into real life versions of Patrick Bateman. Here are the reasons why from the first time I watched it I felt Patrick Bateman was real and what we see really happened with some slight exaggeration and fortune. One thing Patrick Bateman had over many of the real life serial killers I had read about was the wealth and unique world he lived and worked in. That Wall Street lifestyle we see in the film isn't fiction it is very real and while I mean mostly the indulgence and self-centered nature of people with unlimited wealth and take that back to the 1980's and American Psycho's setting is perfect for nurturing Patrick Bateman's development and behavior. Now while not everything we see is real, the ATM telling him to FEED ME A STRAY CAT was Bateman's hallucination, the bullets and pain we see him inflict is real. That is how I have always seen it and we really don't see any of those hallucinations at the start of the film and I have always felt that they only begin at Bateman's final unraveling as we see him go on the killing frenzy. He has lost control and I felt the cop car moment was due to his blind luck and this scene was only ruined by the filmmaker going Michael Bay in what I say was the one mistake for me in the film. But there is an even more personal reason why Patrick Bateman was incredibly real to me and if you want to read about that, well lets hit the Final Verdict. 

 

Final Verdict...5/5....I just love everything about it. I've been into the true crime stuff for a very long time...my wife was one person that used to call me strange and weird because I liked consuming true crime material. While people were reading Michael Crichton novels, I was reading about Andrei Chikatilo from the Soviet Union. I had to hide my Rogue Morgue and Fangoria magazines at the office as not to leave the "wrong impression", hiding my true crime material to "FIT IN", like Bateman says to Evelyn (Reese Witherspoon) in the film, again just another way I related to some of what Bateman was feeling. So It really was like that for me. So now, sitting back and observing the True Crime craze of the past few years, all I can do is laugh as even my wife had her talk shows all do True Crime spin-offs or segments. But I like that people "get" the appeal of true crime now and I don't feel like such a strange person for consuming it. I appreciate that more people have embraced what I have known for a long time now. True Crime makes you smarter as you now may take precautions you never did before, like a simple, "I will start locking this door from now on." decision to just living smarter in this crazy world. Finally people are seeing the value in true crime stories. For me it has never been about the violence but the minds of these killers...what makes them tick. What went wrong (or right in Bateman's case), in their life to create such monsters, are we born evil or are we affected by some unseen force (i.e., the devil)...but more importantly, how do these people get away with killing so many people, I mean, think about you going out and killing 17 human beings before year-end and no one close to you suspects anything! American Psycho is in my Top 5 of All-Time List for so many reasons, I find it super entertaining, theme-filled, and bought into the possibility of real Patrick Batemans among us. Going unnoticed as killers.

I ended up working with one of those type of guys during the last few years of the job I lost due to the merger. He happened to be married to the daughter of the man that owned the company that was acquiring us. He was young, very rich, and very much the yuppie-type we see in American Psycho.

His name is John, this is him today:

 I looked him up and take a guess at what he is doing today??? Take a wild guess....he is the Managing Director, Private Wealth Advisor for a very, very famous Capital Management company who is "...On the cutting edge of the Wealth Management Industry. Exclusively focusing on the needs of the world’s wealthiest families."  John was clean cut, decent, and treated me like family which was odd since I expected him to speak down to me considering his status in life compared to mine. But he didn't, he actually would let me take his $90K Range Rover to get lunch for us and run my errands. There I was a dude from the ghetto taking public transportation to work and there I was driving in a luxury Range Rover around town at lunch, remember this was 1998 before social media so I really felt like like a superstar. I would always look at John and think..."Wow this guy has it all, he is young, rich and married into even more wealth. What a lucky man." Anyways, this is why I totally bought into Bateman being real and the actions we see in the film being real and not a figment of his imagination. I had been around people that could have mirrored Patrick Bateman's lifestyle and no one would have suspected it. John was one of those guys that could fly under the radar. After watching American Psycho I never saw men in suits the same ever again.

Now here is why I find logic in some of the scenes that make people question the reality of what is occurring...these are some spoilers so obviously this is for people that have seen it. I recommend you watch it and come back to my review, that would be awesome. Okay so, mild spoilers starting now.....

The cop car scene, I made sense of this because while it would be hard to ignite a gas tank with just one firearm, a bullet could have pierced the gas tanks and one of the following bullets hits the pavement and creates the spark that ignites what we see. Again, i still feel this is the one mistake in the film and it had more to do with just allowing it to get a bit exaggerating, shooting the cops in the head would have been just as effective in that scene.

The monologue where Bateman states he "simply isn't there." I interpreted that as in his humanity. You can see and feel the human organism but inside he is anything but that. His soul....doesn't exist. He is never "there" as in present or conscious to the suffering he is inflicting on others. I never took that line as if he was hinting that it was all in his imagination. And again, if that is how you interpreted it, you aren't wrong. I just feel different about it. 

The confession....now this was the toughest for me to accept when I first watched the film. But after countless viewings, I still feel the same, from the beginning of the film, with the couli sauce dripping as to mimic blood dripping, we know that what we see isn't what we get. And furthermore this theme is always present in how everyone seems to confuse each other. These men have such an established standard of appearance that going outside it seems to be frowned upon since they all look the f*cking same. I mean, if i was preoccupied with my failed reservation to Dorsia, I would also confuse Bateman for Halberstram. I mean, even Bateman's lawyer, Harold Carnes (Stephen Bogaert) resembles Luis Carruthers (Matt Russ) so it was easy for me to accept that none of these rich *ssholes care about each other and just about the superficiality and instant gratifications the world they live in grant to them. They value nothing else. 

Paul Allen's apartment...living a mere 48 miles from Manhattan and having to commute into the city in the past, I'm aware of the competitive nature of the New York City Real Estate Market. So it was no surprise to me when Bateman returns to the apartment and finds it unrecognizable and things he expected to find, had now been moved. Would a real estate company go as far as to remove things and not report them? I think in the universe the story is set in it would be very possible for things to be swept under the rug. Although I do think the scene could have been more clear had the real estate agent asked Bateman if he was a reporter. Instead the scene plays out differently and while I liked the notion that in the interest of keeping the luxury apartment desirable they would have cleaned everything up and not disclosed what had gone down in the place, I enjoyed the scene more for how its the first time in the film where we see Bateman afraid. In this scene we make the real estate agent scary to Bateman. He is terrified when he sees her and its fantastic. She has the power. 

Okay, as I mentioned before, I never cared whether people felt that everything was in Bateman's imagination even if I felt differently. Again that is one of the things that makes this film so much fun. But for this review I did research to find out what the author and the filmmaker have to say about whether everything we see or read is happening for real or is it just a psychos active imagination? Now I don't have a clip of Bret Easton Ellis saying this but I did come across where he is quoted as saying, "....if none of the murders actually happened, the entire point of the novel would be rendered moot." And this is the clip i found of Mary Harron expressing her regret for making audiences think it was all in Bateman's head:

Well there you have it. The Director herself wishes she would have made it less hallucinatory, especially more so at the end of the film. I was surprised to learn she felt that way because I felt the film had no right or wrong answer and it was even cooler because of it.  

American Psycho is one of my favorite films of all-time...I should buy the movie poster. 

Bonus: The answer to the Jeopardy question that comes on TV when Bateman arrives at the office for the first time is------The Gular Pouch. (Just in case you were left wandering). And no @LimeGreenLegend, I'm not watching the musical. 😄 

Edited October 1, 2020 by Con