American Psycho
dir. Mary Harron
Lions Gate Films

In her second film, director/screenwriter Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol) gives a first-rate treatment to Bret Easton Ellis' controversial novel about the impossibly wealthy Patrick Bateman, who spends his spare time cutting people — girls, mostly — up.

Quite a few people will be outraged by the very existence of American Psycho. Much like the people who mistook Ellis' novel as a festival of sex and gore, you can expect the Moral Majority to look right past the film's satiric commentary and put on the old, worn out LP, "violence in films breeds violence in real life."

That said, those watching "American Psycho" will find much less violence in that film than in, say, Saving Private Ryan or even professional wrestling.

Most of the film's violent scenes are campy, and the violence is implied. Witness Bateman's (Christian Bale) monologue on Huey Lewis and the News while he chops up a colleague off-camera. Only Bale's totally straight — yet enthusiastic, he's talking about music he loves — face is visible. The effect is hilarious.

Just as Ellis' book, Harron and co-writer Guinevere Turner's script functions chiefly as a farce. How is it Patrick Bateman can be such a clumsy, obvious psychopath without anybody noticing?

A: The characters are all too absorbed with their own lives to care.

Nowhere is this more telling than when Bateman tells a girl, "I'm into murders and executions," and she thinks he's said "mergers and acquisitions."

Which brings up another point. There's a lot more going on here than just people having sex and being killed. The way each supporting character — for Bale is really the film's only star — responds to Bateman's actions is in itself, a form of microcommentary.

Witness Jean (Chloë Sevigny), Patrick's secretary who's in love with Bateman despite the harsh misogyny that begins the minute he steps into the office. These two characters' interaction is poignant commentary on how the '80s Wall Street society, captured splendidly by Harron's occasional panoramic shots, values appearances over all else.

Or take the prostitute Bateman calls "Christie," who, even though she has been badly injured by a drill-wielding Bateman in the past, hops back in the car with him when she sees how much money he is offering her. As if Bateman's money is worth more than her potential lost life.

And the way Bale sits atop Bateman's throne, conducting the comic book commentary is the perfect complement to Harron's script. He's playing a character whose actions are virtually unfathomable, so rather than try to make the character compassion-worthy, or believable, he embellishes the brushstrokes of Harron's caricature, smiling winsomely at the camera as he stalks another unknowing victim or whoops it up rodeo-style as he engages in a (tastefully edited) three-way sex scene.

The film falls a bit short in its portrayal of Bateman's girlfriend, Evelyn (Reese Witherspoon). Though Evelyn's role is not a major one, Witherspoon appears to realize this and, at times, looks bored. We never really have a grasp of why she's so eager to marry Bateman, other than the obvious reasons of looks and money, and Witherspoon doesn't even sell that point. Fortunately, she's not on camera enough to make a difference.

While American Psycho doesn't pack in even half the satire, social commentary or depth of Ellis' novel, it's a movie based on a book. What can you expect? And it does play to its medium's strength, smartly exaggerating the "Are all these murders just happening in the mind of a would-be killer?" angle. Despite the shallowness of Bateman's supporting cast and unseen neighbors, it really is too much to fathom no one hearing the bloodcurdling screams from inside of his apartment, or noticing the trail of blood forming behind the heavy luggage he's carrying out the door.

Then again, it could just be that Harron is arguing that the fabulously successful can get away with anything.

— Eric Wittmershaus (ericw at flakmag dot com)