AMERICAN PSYCHO (2000) Dir. Mary Harron, 101 mins This is a review I’ve been putting off for some time, but when I saw this one pop up on Amazon Prime, I thought it was time to bite the bullet and get stuck in. To provide a little context, this is a book that I’ve always loved – I wrote an essay about this every year without fail at University, and it remains probably the most reread and dogeared book on my shelves. Bret Easton Ellis’s novel was a controversial topic even before it came out and retains a notorious reputation even many years on. For me it’s often misunderstood though – American Psycho is a biting satire on the yuppie culture of the 80s and a look at the cultural emptiness and desensitisation of a broken central character. The whole thing – despite its more disturbing scenes – is blackly funny, and sometimes laugh out loud. The movie is not one I have fond memories of, but not in any specific way – as I came back to it there was just this deep sense of being rather let down on first watch. Maybe my expectations were just too high, so I thought that in the spirit of fairness I should give this one another whirl. American Psycho follows the story of Patrick Bateman, a wealthy businessman (it’s never eminently clear exactly what he does) who seemingly has everything – a huge, expensive apartment, fancy meals in restaurants every night, a beautiful girlfriend (played by Reese Witherspoon, whom we only occasionally see), a host of lavish clothes and a party lifestyle to boot. But beneath the slick veneer lies a murderer and a sexual deviant, a man looking for more and more twisted thrills in an effort to puncture through the perceived tedium of his life. Surrounded by people as empty and boring as himself, the excitement he seeks takes him down ever more vicious, disturbing and dangerous avenues. The movie is a strange watch, because for the first hour it was almost pitch perfect – it captured the heart of Bateman’s vacuous lifestyle, including his idolisation of artists like Genesis (although apparently Phil Collins was too artistic?), Huey Lewis and the News and Whitney Houston, the obsession with having the greatest business card among his group of friends and the obsession with elaborate restaurants and a never-ending quest to get a reservation for Dorsia. The grim humour is there, and Christian Bale makes a really good Bateman – he has the look and the fake bravado, the machismo and charisma ultimately backed up by nothing. He even describes himself as ‘the shape of a person’ rather than a person, which says a great deal. I was actually thinking at that stage – why did I dislike this movie so much initially? Then the last half hour hit, and it was there where it all fell apart. The finale turns into an absolute mess, giving in to a sensationalism that didn’t exist in quite the same way in the book. It also takes the element of doubt that was key to the original conclusion and removes it entirely, for me removing something from its quality. Honestly less would have been more here – it’s the only time the tone really goes awry, and we were ultimately only about thirty minutes from a great adaptation. It maybe pulls punches comparative to the text, but them a full, unflinching version would be a very different thing and I doubt would get any sort of mainstream release. There’s a lot good in here, including several of the central performances delivered by a fine cast. The dark comedy is largely intact, including some of the interior monologue from Bateman, and the look and feel and soundtrack are all great. But it doesn’t quite land the same message as the original, which is a shame for such excellent source material. RATING: 5.5/10. I was certainly going to give this some high marks after 60 minutes or so, but it does drop numerous points for a finale that goes pretty quickly off the rails – and not in the way you might have wanted. This one was certainly a troubled production, and maybe some of that shows up in the final piece. The movie adaptation here feels like a missed opportunity, and as much as I’m not a huge fan of remakes this one could maybe do with a retry – it was almost there, and I’d rather see something remade that didn’t quite hit the mark than being a huge success. There probably is a superb adaptation to be made, but this one ultimately isn’t it. TODAY ON THE GINGER NUTS OF HORROR WEBSITE [FEATURE] THE CHRISTIAN WEIRD BY JONATHAN WALKER THE HEART AND SOUL OF HORROR MOVIE REVIEWS |
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