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American Psycho

American Psycho

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Somehow A Nice Try But¿
Review: I know. I shouldn't have gone to watch the film based on my favourite novel anyway. But I did. Out of curiosity. Wanted to see how bad it got, how much they'd ruined this great great piece of literature.

In a way I'm surprised, positively. 'Cause the film has some good ideas, some good parts. Like the visualization of Patrick Bateman's apartment, or his anger caused by pure jealousy and unfulfilledness.

But all in all, it is not a very good film. The story is reduced to nearly nothing. Some unnecessary (and very poorly done) stuff, like the killing of some policemen, is added which is very annoying to the whole concept. And although Christian Bale starts out well and is well-chosen for the role, he somehow gets too nervous in the long run.

If you have read Bret Easton Ellis' superb novel, then don't go see the film. They couldn't have put it to the big screen anyway - but they did try.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Blood, Madness, and Humor: A Fascinating Blend
Review: I absolutely adored this film. I am a devout fan of black humor, and I was delighted to see it executed with such finesse. When I first saw the film at the cinema, I found myself laughing at things that even I would have previously deemed inappropriate. After contemplating the film for a bit, I then purchased the novel, which I also adored. This is the first time in ages that I can say I enjoyed the movie equally as well as I did the novel. A friend told me (before we saw the film) that Leonardo DiCaprio was originally slated to portray Bateman. Blasphemy! That would truly have been a disaster. Christian Bale is phenomenal, and it was pleasing to see him display his broad range of abilities. At times, I even found that Bale's comical presentation took on a slight Jim Carrey-esque influence. Please do not take this the wrong way, considering that Patrick Bateman is a caricature, it is understandable. In my opinion, it was a further indication of Bale's versatility. The casting for this film was positively astonishing, and in spite of myself, I found a new appreciation for some actors in the film that I had never particularly enjoyed before. Brilliant direction, wonderful portrayals, and incredibly entertaining.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: What the fudge
Review: The acting in this never flowed the plot just got stupider at the end.although the thing with the business card's is too funny.My dad used to work in stock market in the 80's I actually remember one time when i was 5 or 6 him and his friends at our families house showing each other there business card's and getting all serious aboutit

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best movie of 2000, definitely
Review: The book is horrible, funny and essential, but they could never have made it into a film. The film is also horrible, funny and essential, but it ain't the book. Mary Harron wisely decided not to do a Cannibal Holocaust on this one, and emphasised instead the black humour. She and co-screenwriter Guenevere Turner (who'd have thought that that nice girl from Go Fish could end up writing American Psycho?) deliver the funniest film about twisted men since Fight Club.

Despite the contributions of Harron, Turner, the production designer, the cinematographer and the rest of the cast, it has to be said that this is Christian Bale's movie. Leonardo Di Caprio just isn't in this league. Bale transformed himself into an extraordinary simulacrum of a human being, a perfectly-accented, tautly-muscled, immaculately groomed Americanoid boy, whose cheery smile is constantly belied by eyes as dead as gun muzzles. He's the most memorable cinema nutcase in a mainstream film since Travis Bickle. The scene when he puts Huey Lewis on the stereo, dresses in a plastic raincoat and dances round the room preparatory to putting an axe into Jared Leto's head made me almost puke with laughter, and his instant turnaround into a frothing, bawling maniac is quite incredible. His breakdown later on in the film almost makes you sympathise with this utterly hollow character.

It's pretty unthinkable that American Psycho will get an Oscar, but Bale proves himself to be one of the most technically adept and assured actors of his generation with this performance. Slasher film fans will be let down (I saw it in a cinema in Plymouth UK, with an audience of people who clearly expected a Manhattan Chainsaw Massacre and who were audibly disappointed not to get it) but it's a sublimely horrible and great film. Nice to see Willem Dafoe finally being cast as a sane person, too.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Not bad for a dark comedy
Review: This movie really craked me up. Thank goodness for Mary Hutton adding some humor to this story that I thought was just plain sick. Christian Bale did a wonderful performance has the serial killer, Patrick Bateman. The very end of the story makes me wonder if there will be a "American Psycho 2," depending on if Bret Easton Ellis wants to write another novel about Patrick Bateman. The music for this movie is great, but the soundtrack does not contain the 80's music which really is a blow.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Not what I consider good.
Review: I just watched this movie over the weekend and I have to say I didn't like it. Maybe I just didn't get it, but I found it to be rather pointless. I can remember when Natural Born Killers (one of my personal faves) was getting into trouble about "too much gratuitous violence" and this movie has WAY more than NBK. I found it pointless. All I could see was a self-absorbed sex maniac with an extreme lust for killing. That sums it up. Maybe if there had been a point it would have been better.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A Sick Movie That Should Never Have Been Made
Review: The protagonist in this movie is a sick man who kills people out of an uncontrollable compulsion. Such people certainly do exist, although of course they are much more frequent in Hollywood than in real life. However, this movie is pointless because there is nothing really to say about such people. They are simply like rabid dogs that must be caught and destroyed for the good of society.

This movie's plot is simple. The sick protagonist murders several people. That is all.

The movie itself, like the protagonist, is sick. The movie delights in showing us the variety of ways in which its sick hero murders, or considers murdering, several pretty women. This is a kind of pornography that is destructive to society when the movie has no redeeming point to make that might give the depiction of the murders some reason to exist.

The movie is also an exercise in subtle political propaganda, because it makes it a point to make its sick hero voice a number of politically incorrect viewpoints. The message of this is that a sick man like this naturally cannot be politcally or socially liberal; he must hold conservative or radical right viewpoints. But that is a lie, of course. Serial murders are simply sick people, and their murderous impulses have nothing at all to do with politics.

But the sickest thing about the movie is that in it we never shown, even once, the suffering that this sick man has caused. The murder victims are killed, they are dead, and that is all. We see no one cry for their loss. The only emotion we are ever shown is the tormented suffering the murderer.

Movies like this are bad not because they cause people to emulate the behavior of their sick heroes, which they probably do not, but because they help to desensitize people to the real suffering that violence causes.

This is a sick and pointless movie about a sick and pointless man that should never have been made.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: shock without value
Review: Does the main character have a split personality? Did he really do all those terrible things or did he just imagine it? The ending, direction, and screenplay are so bad, you'll never find out by watching this movie.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Shock without value
Review: Does the main character have a split personality? Did he really do all those terrible things or did he just imagine it? The direction and screenplay are so bad, you'll never find out by watching this movie.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: As social satire, this one's a killer!
Review: Bret Easton Ellis' novel was a creepy, frightening portrait of self-aware yet detached evil. The movie version of "American Psycho", on the other hand, is a cleverly drawn social satire, choosing black comedy over graphic violence to make its point. The movie is closer in spirit to the similar Jules Feiffer-scripted 1971 classic "Little Murders" than say, "Friday the 13th, Part VII". The core subject matter is so dark and despairing that the occasional laugh-out-loud scenes are quite welcome when they occur.Christian Bale does an admirable job portraying Charles Manson as a Yuppie. Those who think Bale is too "pretty" and smart to play a serial killer should remember that Ted Bundy was considered an attractive,charming and intelligent person in casual social situations! Obviously not for all tastes, but a winner for those who enjoy a twist on the norm.


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