American Psycho: Movie Review, DVD Review (2000)

(Originally published 2000)

Directed by Mary Harron, written by Harron and Guinevere Turner, based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis, 100 minutes, rated R.

Violence as an extended metaphor for something deeper is hardly new, so it’s to Mary Harron’s great credit that she makes it seem new, fresh and exciting in “American Psycho,” her feminist take on Bret Easton Ellis’ controversial, 1991 best-selling novel.

Mirroring the film’s serial-killing psychopath, Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale in a breakout performance), Harron proves she’s just as adept with a knife.

As the film’s co-screenwriter, she has successfully trimmed off much of the novel’s underlying fat, streamlining Ellis’ rampant use of brand names and over-the-top bloodletting while staying true to the novel’s satirical concept: the greed of the 1980s as realized by an ax-wielding, head-severing, junior master of the universe.

Mixing horror with sharp humor, wit with graphic violence, Harron mines the truth out of what can politely be described as an imperfect man living in wildly imperfect times. Her film is important; it forces us to reconsider the 1980s while also asking us to look hard at its soulless characters and find ourselves in them.

That takes guts, which, when Harron isn’t spilling them on the floor, “American Psycho” has in spades.

Grade: B+