American Psycho
Patrick Bateman is either an underappreciated musicologist, or he would fit in magnificently with an online community of “experts” who dissect every little nuance of art, whether that nuance is there or not. That was one of my biggest takeaways from Mary Harron’s “American Psycho” as I watched it for the first time. Is there anything else that matters more from this film?
Before I get to the meat and potatoes of the film, I must say that Christian Bale is locked-in and brilliant to watch as Bateman, an investment banker on Wall Street with a raging narcissistic personality, and a desire to kill that cannot be sated. This was the beginning of Bale’s ascent from promising child actor (on display in “Empire of the Sun” and “Newsies”) to heavyweight character actor, and finally watching the film, I completely get why he became a hot commodity for filmmakers. He inhabits the role of Bateman with a beautifully absurd insincerity that moves from sinister to just plain bonkers at the drop of a hat. He is the main reason to watch this movie. I might even say he’s the only reason to watch this movie.
I remember, from the 2006 documentary “This Film is Not Yet Rated,” seeing Harron talk about her experience with this film and the MPAA, and how she said that the ratings board gave the film an NC-17 for essentially the entire tone of the film. Having now seen it, I am curious as to what tone the ratings board is referring to. The film, adapted by Harron and Guinevere Turner from the novel by Brett Easton Ellis, starts off as a slick parody of the empty Wall Street “greed is good” lifestyle Bateman exists in, and then it transitions into a ridiculous horror comedy when Bateman’s demons get the best of him, and he is unable to contain his killer instinct. The first part works better than the second part, although neither one is enough to sustain an entire feature film. The problem with creating such a hollow personality in a main character is that there isn’t really any depth that can be explored for the film’s 102-minute running time, regardless of how great the performance by Bale is.
This is a film where we are left wondering whether a great performance can elevate a film beyond its narrative limitations. I think that it can in some cases- I do not think it does in this case. What Harron is trying to accomplish here is a bit too muddled, even if you think it’s just a study of how a narcissistic personality can become unhinged, which I think is ultimately what the film is trying to get at. There’s just not a lot there to explore, and what we’re left with is a film that relishes in its outrageous moments (like Bateman’s musings on Huey Lewis and the News and Genesis before he has a threesome, or kills Jared Leto, or his naked chase with a chainsaw), gives us weird moments like “I’ve got to return a videotape” as a catch-all excuse, or is poking fun at the douchebag culture of Reagan’s America. With a shallow character at its center, you can only do so much with all of that.
