American Psycho
2000
**½
Director: Mary Harron
Cast: Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto, Reese Witherspoon, Samantha Mathis, Chloë Sevigny, Justin Theroux, Josh Lucas, Bill Sage, Cara Seymour
In 1987, Patrick Bateman, a wealthy 27-year-old New York investment banker who is obsessed with maintaining a flawless façade, leads a double life as a serial killer. Mary Harron's heavy-handed satire is based on the 1991 novel by Bret Easton Ellis, who has made a career out of writing about wealthy, narcissistic, and morally vacant people. Although the film has gained a cult following, I didn't warm up to its charms in 2000 or thereafter. Christian Bale gives an impressive, if very mannered, lead performance. The best part is the nicely unsettling final third, which blurs the line between reality and hallucination and leaves both Bateman and the audience unsure of what is real and what is not.
