American Psycho (2000)

Written by Bret Easton Ellis, Mary Harron, & Guinevere Turner
Directed by Mary Harron
Featuring Christian Bale, Justin Theroux, Josh Lucas, Bill Sage, Chloe Sevigny, Reese Witherspoon, Samantha Mathis, Matt Ross, Jared Leto, Willem Dafoe, Cara Seymore, Guinevere Turner
2000/USA/101 minutes
Review by The Naked Kiss

American Psycho is based on a novel by Bret Easton Ellis. The book encountered a huge backlash and was banned in many stores when it was first released due to its intense and well executed degrading murders and tortures against women. Feminists and Christians alike hated it and deemed it vile and misogynistic.

This film does not equal the violence of the book, it concentrates on satirizing the 80's period and it does so well, from the designer clothes to the soundtrack, watching American Psycho is like taking a trip back to the 80's.

Bale delivers an amazing performance as Patrick Bateman, a seemingly neurotic rich male who works on Wall Street. What he does we are never quite sure of. As the movie progresses Bateman gets more and more out of control and the killings become more frequent. The movie stays pretty true to the book except for the chainsaw scene and the odd small detail that only obsessive fans of the book would pick up on. Many fans of the book deem the movie to be a Hollywood film and complain that it is not violent enough.

In the book Patrick talks a lot about 80's culture, the music the clothing etc, and this translates well in the movie. The violence in the book is far too extreme and I don't see how it could have been as effective in the movie as it was in the book, visually it would have been so hard to pull off some of the tortures/murders and to try and emulate the same intensity as the book has seems impossible. I think it was a wise move to focus more on the era than the violence as people would only complain it wasn't gory enough.

Made on a budget of 6 million dollars, you would swear it cost at least $20 million to make, American Psycho has beautiful cinematography and the opening credit images are really simple but striking. This is certainly not a Hollywood film although there are a handful of big name stars, the Director Mary Harron (I shot Andy Warhol) fought hard to keep the movie from Hollywood's hands.

Originally Leonardo DiCaprio was set to play Bateman which outraged Harron who contemplated leaving the project. Female activist Gloria Steinem talked DiCaprio out of the role as he had thousands of teenage fans and such a role would not go down well. DiCaprio would have pocketed $22 million dollars for the part. The ironic thing is that Gloria Steinem is Christian Bales stepmother. See more trivia below to see who else was lined up to star.

I think this is a great movie and compared to most books turned movies, this one stayed pretty true to the book. If you are a huge fan of the book you might be disappointed. I just really dug Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman, I think he did an amazing job and every time I see a picture of him I see Patrick Bateman. Check out the Killer Collector's Edition of the film, released by Lions Gate, it is uncut, has 2 commentaries, "American Psycho: From book to screen", including a video essay- The pornography of killing, also a documentary on the 80's downtown featuring celebutante and ex club kid James St. James, deleted scenes with optional director commentary plus more.

More Trivia:

Edward Norton was offered the part and turned it down.

Brad Pitt was also a candidate to star with David Cronenberg directing, and Bret Easton Ellis to write the script. The only part of the movie that author Bret Easton Ellis didn't like was Bateman's moonwalk during Paul Allen's murder-scene.

Johnny Depp also showed interest in playing Bateman.