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American Psycho

Movie American Psycho Director Mary Harron and Andrzej Sekula Producer Christian Halsey Solomon and R Cinematographer Andrzej Sekula Music John Cale

IN American Psycho director Mary Harron has adapted Bret EastonEllis`s gory, 1991 cult novel to the screen. And what she did with theblood-curdling novel was turn it into a mean horror comedy classic. And theconversion has gone of smoother than a baby`s bottom. American Psycho, is an ambitious, confident film. Except for a fewwell-chosen lists, the book`s catalogue of high-end consumer items has beendrastically edited. Its murder rate has also dropped considerably. Thetrimming demonstrates once again that less is often more. What remains ofthe story "is a sleek, satirical, yuppie-era Jeykll and Hyde". A star performance by the dashing Welsh actor Christian Bale softens thenovel`s portrait of a serial-killing Wall Street hotshot, just enough toforce the audience to identify with the killer. Bale`s portrayal of27-year-old Patrick Bateman, a budding merger and acquisition-master by dayand homicidal maniac by night, is funny, blood curdling and pathetic, all inone thrilling cauldron. As this character changes from wolfish yuppie, to sociopath to a whiner,Bale makes the audience feel the connections between these personalities.One minute Bale`s Patrick is a corporate geek, the next an arrogantsmoothie, the next a wimp unable to distinguish fantasy from reality. Thathe`s a serial killer is quite apparent, or at least it is to Bale. The fluidity with which Bale moves from one state of mind to the othermakes for the kind of performance you`d expect from Bradd Pitt or AnthonyHopkins. From the opening credits, in which drops of blood are confused with redberry sauce drizzled on a plate of gourmet cuisine, the movie establishes aperfect balance of humour and gore. Some of the funniest speeches are Patrick`s superfluous lectures on the`80s poppies Phil Collins, Whitney Houston, and Huey Lewis. While the movie conforms to late-`80s styles of design and architecture,they are exaggerated. The severe black-and-white minimalism of Patrick`sapartment has the feel of an up-market morgue. Compared with these yuppie cobras, the women are poignantly human. ReeseWitherspoon, as Patrick`s fiancee, plays another of her sweet-and-souringenues. Samantha Mathis is also impressive as Courtney, Patrick`sdepressed girl on the side. Chloe Sevigny brings a dignity to the role of Patrick`s discreetlysmitten secretary, Jean. Christie, a streetwalker Patrick brings back to hisapartment for videotaped sexual threesomes that may, or may not, turn intoblood baths. Harron has strengthened Ellis`s angry satire of the greed-walks-and-talksdecade and the lack of substance in American life. As Patrick embarks on hisseries of grisly murders, each of which only serves to spur his appetite forfurther carnage, the movie portrays his acts of violence as means to getattention. As Patrick`s rampage gathers force, his crimes are committed in surreallyempty spaces. The film is a good satirical take on the `80s and `90s. Andthere is a definite element of truth in the story, that very few would liketo know about.