American Psycho

Originally posted by bigvalbowski
The only exception to this rule was the killing of Jared Leto's character. Leto was a guy who he socialised with and yet he seemingly killed him. However, we find out later that Leto is alive and well. He's been sighted in London. WTF? But we saw the murder. Again, Bateman's imagination. Subconsciously Bateman knew that Leto was leaving for London, however the insane Bateman didn't know it. He's still a psychopath, even if the evil Bateman is very much a controlled animal.

Originally posted by ryanpaige


The lawyer saying he had dinner with Paul Allen overseas could mean two different things. One, it could mean that the killings were all a figment of Bale's imagination. Or since all those Wall Street Types look alike (a running theme in the movie is that Bale's character is confused with someone else), the lawyer had dinner with someone he thought to be Paul Allen, but wasn't.

I think the whole point of the film is that you don't know whether the killings were real or not.

My initial thoughts:

There was something that niggled at me throughout AMERICAN PSYCHO and it wasn't until it ended that I realised what it was. The film is ironic and caustic and cynical and cold, and is based on a work of contemporary American fiction [the most ironic and caustic and cynical and cold fiction on the planet] by Bret Easton Ellis. It was made one year after FIGHT CLUB (1999), which is ironic and caustic and cynical and cold, and is based on a work of contemporary American fiction by Chuck Palahniuk. Like FIGHT CLUB it is violent and spiteful and about the trappings of materialism and the culture that it has bred. The thing that niggled at me throughout AMERICAN PSYCHO is that when compared to FIGHT CLUB this film actually takes the subject matter and makes it work.

Don't get me wrong. I love FIGHT CLUB as pure anarchy and I believe that it is visually brilliant, wonderfully performed and masterfully directed. However, and you may call me crazy, but I believe that the source material for FIGHT CLUB just plain sucks. It tries to be something metaphysical. The whole Tyler Durden being a construct of the narrator is all very good and well but it is cliché and overused, and to me just typifies the risk of post modern cinema becoming old hat. Wow. They're the same person. Now tell the story backwards or some **** like that...

AMERICAN PSYCHO doesn't need an acrobatic plot to make its point. All it needs is a lead character that embodies corporate evil, allows it to destroy him, tries to redeem himself when he thinks he may be in trouble, and then realises that in this world, he doesn't have to. The narrator in FIGHT CLUB saves himself and Marla from Tyler Durden and Project Mayhem and there is hope. Patrick Bateman tells us at the end of AMERICAN PSYCHO that "this confession means nothing". And the human race is without hope. The ending to AMERICAN PSYCHO is true to life. Patrick Bateman can get away with murder. He doesn't have to redeem himself.

The cast list of AMERICAN PSYCHO is wonderful. Christian Bale. Willem Dafoe. Jared Leto. Justin Theroux. Reese. Each actor is used to the utmost of their abilities, and each is aided by some of the best writing of the late nineties. The coldness of AMERICAN PSYCHO, the cynical warmth of AMERICAN BEAUTY (1999), and the unbridled emotion of MAGNOLIA (1999) are three prime examples of why the late nineties (and early naughties) was one of the best periods for American screenwriters, and by association American cinema, of the last ten years. AMERICAN PSYCHO is nothing more than a collection of progressively insane scenes and sadistic/informative monologues, and yet it provides its players with pure gold time and time again. My personal favourite scene of the movie involves Justin Theroux and Christian Bale when they are in a bathroom at a club doing cocaine in a stall. A guy sticks his head over the top of the next stall over and says, "Will you guys shut the **** up? I'm trying to do drugs!" It is this sort of thing that not only fuels the heightening insanity of the film and provides the actors with magnificent scenes to play in, but rings true to the essence of the film. No one is trying to claim their dignity in AMERICAN PSYCHO, there are no laughable monologues about "farming maize on abandoned super highways" like there are in FIGHT CLUB. Just crazy mother****ers living life to the excess, doing coke in stalls, killing people, listening to Phil Collins, and becoming increasingly detached from reality. The characters aren't trying to pull themselves back from the brink in AMERICAN PSYCHO because they don't want to. Tyler Durden hates his world. Patrick Bateman loves his. And if the goal is to isolate the audience by showing them themselves, then showing them Patrick Bateman is the better option. We don't want to stop being consumers. We want to keep on buying. We want to keep killing. Each of us is our own little American psycho and each of our confessions mean absolutely nothing.

Originally posted by Fox
I haven't seen Fight Club (probably cos I'm not a Pitt fan)

Originally posted by Sexy Celebrity


I was gonna yell at you, but then I realized that the less amount of Pitt fans, the closer he is to me, after Jennifer is hypnotized and falls in love with Lyle Lovett, ala Julia Roberts.