American Psycho (2000)
Genre: Horror
Duration: 101 minuten
Country:
United States / Canada
Directed by: Mary Harron
Stars: Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe and Jared Leto
IMDb score:
7,6 (770.468)
Releasedate: 13 April 2000
American Psycho plot
"I think my mask of sanity is about to slip."
Patrick Bateman seems at first sight the perfect man: he is handsome, intelligent and earns a lot of money. He may be obsessed with his looks, but to those around him he seems like a normal man. At night, however, Patrick loves to kill innocent people in a gruesome way. Jealousy, hatred, anger, any reason is good for killing strangers as well as friends. The police suspect nothing of his massacres, until a detective gets wind of his actions...
Actors and actresses
Patrick Bateman
Detective Donald Kimball
Paul Allen
Craig McDermott
Courtney Rawlinson
Luis Carruthers
David Van Patten
Jean
Christie
Timothy Bryce
Reviews & comments
flaphead
-
- 789 messages
- 940 votes
Special piece of cinema, which can best be described as a psychological black comedy thriller. The black comic effect is in Bateman's lifestyle and way of thinking (partly narrative), but also very much in his behaviour, which is often quite contradictory to his appearance. As the film progresses, the psychological charge becomes stronger, partly because Bateman is aware of his behavior. That's where the thriller atmosphere creeps in, which some also refer to as horror, but that's not so bad (and I quickly find something horror, which I don't like).
The scenes with the business cards or his pop music monologues are great. There also seem to be loose ends, but they are then cleverly incorporated into the plot, so that you are actually left with a pretty sick thought. Both for the viewer and the main character.
That combination of genres is sublimely intertwined. Bale simply plays a brilliant Oscar-worthy role as the mentally deranged narcissistic yup. But it is certainly not a film for everyone, given the psychological charge and the accompanying violence. Typical case, a bit strange but tasty!
Translated from Dutch · View original
Chainsaw
-
- 8580 messages
- 3523 votes
When the movie just came out I was disappointed. This teenage boy was looking for grotesque and hideous monsters with serious slaughter in his horror and suddenly I looked at a man in a suit who talks lavishly about the types of shampoo he uses and I see a couple of slippery guys getting horny with the type of paper and font of their business cards. I didn't understand it and it didn't bother me. But luckily we live in a time where you can review movies. Because American Psycho is a great movie. A very cool movie.
American Psycho has a wonderfully cynical tone. We meet a lot of extremely unsympathetic yuppies and follow king of the smooth-skinned Patrick Bateman, with his dirty grin and quick talk, which sometimes suddenly turn into full-blown rage or hysterical behavior. The movie is hilarious, with a hilarious soundtrack to the events and visuals we see while playing this soundtrack. Over the top violence and almost absurd scenes alternate and it makes little difference, because all the characters - except for Willem Dafoe and Bateman's assistant - are huge bastards. Everyone lives in their own world, so Bateman can often admit that he likes to brutally kill people. Nobody cares, so Bateman goes about his business, culminating in chasing a girl naked on sneakers with a chainsaw. The film has enough elements of horror, but is also everywhere to tear you. Special mix and clever how Mary Harron keeps it all in balance. Also a nice cast, but Christian Bale obviously steals the show. His best role to date.
4 stars.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Onderhond
-
- 87426 messages
- 12457 votes
Very nice review.
Haven't read the book yet, but I don't really care. Bale('s character) is perfect here, nice screen and completely off-the-rails, which just makes this a really fun, funny and still quite relevant movie. Because even though the film is a few years old (and the many references are even older), Bale's wrestling is still very much of this time.
Visually I could have imagined it a bit better, too bad that a film about a neat freak is not really white (while a lot of white is used), the use of light and color could have been a little tighter. The soundtrack itself isn't much, but the way it is incorporated is fortunately hilarious, so it doesn't seem really outdated either.
But in the end this is mainly Bale's party. One of the roles that colored his career, although of course he has more. Do miss some of this kind of sharpness in films these days, comedies have often become dramadies, but that also means that a film does not age as quickly.
4.0* and a extended review
Translated from Dutch · View original
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