BOTH trite and heavy-handed, “American Psycho” is satire for the sanctimonious: a misfiring black comedy oddly reminiscent of all those bad 1990s movies about strippers getting killed at bachelor parties.
Of course, it’s better made than the ultra-dark comedies that followed Quentin Tarantino’s ascent – it’s beautifully shot, boasts a starmaking performance by Christian Bale and features some witty jokes about restaurant culture in the ’80s – but unlike them it’s burdened by colossal pretensions to social significance.
Like the notorious 1991 novel on which it’s based, “American Psycho” offers a cheap and hypocritical critique of American consumerism and vanity – diseases that presumably don’t afflict celebrity novelists and Hollywood filmmakers – that actually tells you more about its creators’ smugness and vanity than about the culture they claim to satirize.
Sure, the movie isn’t quite as cynical or as repulsive as the book: Writer-director Mary Harron has the good sense to drop most of the fantasies of misogynistic sadism that author Bret Easton Ellis hoped (rightly) would cause a scandal and revive his comatose career.
Bale, a British actor with an uncanny ability to channel Tom Cruise, plays Patrick Bateman, an investment banker with a perfect apartment, a perfect body and perfect skin – thanks to the lotions and potions he applies during and after his morning shower. He and his obnoxious, bigoted banker friends are all obsessed by clothes, business cards and restaurant reservations.
One evening, Bateman puts Phil Collins on the stereo, delivers the first of several (increasingly tedious) lectures about his love for bland middle-of-the-road rock bands, and kills one of his colleagues (Jared Leto) with an ax.
He then embarks on an odyssey of killing that becomes increasingly surreal, until you wonder if the whole thing isn’t taking place in his head. There’s a particularly strange and over-the-top slasher sequence during which a naked Bateman carrying a chainsaw (now a symbol for female fears of violent men?) chases a screaming, bloodied hooker through the corridors of a tony apartment building.
The always superb Chloe Sevigny makes the most of a small role as Bateman’s mousy, vulnerable secretary. Reese Witherspoon plays Bateman’s obnoxious fiancée. And Willem Dafoe is the detective investigating Bateman’s first murder. But the real stars of the movie are the impressively stylish sets.
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AMERICAN PSYCHO 1/2
A heavy-handed, smug and in the end hollow satire on the ’80s based on the notoriously gruesome novel by Bret Easton Ellis. Starring Christian Bale. Directed by Mary Harron. Running time: 100 minutes. Rated R. At the 42nd Street E Walk, the Kips Bay, the Loews Village, others.