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American Psycho

American Psycho

List Price: $14.98
Your Price: $13.48
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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: TRASH
Review: Well, if the yuppies who are making thousand or millions of dollars are so stupid and so empty of character as the ones portrayed in this movie, uau, they must be geniuses for being so silly and still marking lots of money.... Anyway, Bale's acting is great, the editing is good, direction is good, but the story sucks.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very Good For What It Is
Review: Come on, all you people that are disappointed by this movie went in with a closed mind!!! If you go into seeing this with the mind set that you are going to see your typical Hollywood horror movie, then you ARE going to be disappointed. Instead, go into this with an open mind and just watch it and try to understand it for what it is. I can't say what that is because that is up to the indvidual watching it to decide! I am sure at this point you are saying HUH??? Trust me, just watch it and you'll understand what I am saying by the end. I know I am going to stir up a lot of controversy by my next statement, but I wouldn't say it unless I meant it. CHRISTIAN BALE gives one of the BEST performances I have ever seen by an actor. Yes that is a strong statement, but I can't stop thinking about this movie and how he ABSOULETELY NAILED his performance. His character was not an easy one to portray and the whole time I watched it the first two times, I couldn't get over how well he portrays this character. While Tom Hanks gets a lot of accolades for his performances, I think a lot of his performances reflect his personality into the character. This character that Christian portrays is complex, dark, and emotionless on the inside yet outgoing and extremely educated on the outside and Christian performs both sides to absolute perfection. The whole time you watch him you just marvel at how well he pulls off everything he does. The rest of the characters within the movie really don't contribute much other than a supporting cast. Christian is the star and what makes this movie what it is. Is the movie disturbing in parts??? Yes! Is it sexist??? Yes!! Do the characters display superficiality??? Yes!! All of this though itertwines into the story and helps add humor to it by making fun of the 80's "ME" decade. This movie is branded a dark comedy but don't go into thinking you are going to see "Weekend at Bernies" type humor. This movie isn't for everybody, but if you have an open mind and don't go into it with any expectations, you should enjoy it for the type of movie it is and for the acting performance you are about to see. The ending is enough alone to make you watch and want to see it again!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: What was the point?
Review: This was quite possibly one of the very worst movies I have ever had to sit through. I actually gave up and stopped watching at around the time Christian Bale, the star, began hacking away at somebody to the beat of a Huey Lewis song, "Hip To Be Square." Mr. Lewis, as I understand it, wasn't very pleased over the movie's use of his music and actually tried taking the filmmakers to court. Can't say that I blame him.

Although based on a popular novel that I will admit I haven't read, the movie just didn't seem to have any real story. Yet, there were people and critics alike who thought this was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Go figure. What I find hard to accept is the fact that Leonardo Dicaprio had long been considered for the role Bale eventually won! I'm glad he turned it down because, frankly, a lousy movie like this would have easily ruined his career.

Rent "Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer" if you really want a chilling film experience. It was shot for half the budget of this one and is far superior.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I am shocked
Review: I have managed to see this movie twice now. At no point could I find the black humor that some people seem to see in it. Rather, I would call this true horror. Just the idea that people are self-centered to the point of being able to mistake one person for another is mind blowing.

Some people have stated that the chainsaw scene is one of the best parts of the movie. I disagree. To me the real point of the movie is driven home when he returns to Paul Allens apartment to find it completely cleaned up. The shock comes when the rental lady simply asks him to leave and not come back. If this single scene isn't the greatest depiction of horror even played, I don't know what is.

To sum up, if you're into thinking movies buy it. If not, go somewhere else.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A dark, synical look into the mind of a murderer
Review: Based on the book, American Psyco is a dark satire. It takes a look at some very privilaged young men doing very bad things during the late 1980's. One of these rich Ceo's just so happens to be a mass murderer. Patrick Bateman, Christian Bale, takes you into his world; revealing his nightly blood lust. The film is brilliantly directed. Christian Bale is remarkable! The film is very violent but not nearly as bad as the book. Watch for when Patrick tests to see if anyone is listening and says off-the-cuff remarks. enjoy! Allison W.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: YEAR 2000 worst movie
Review: I cannot understand what others may see in this meaningless weak erogant bad acting psycho!!!

For God's sake the acting was bad, the story is meaningless, the scenes are weak... no plot, nor a twist or anything worth watching.

The actor did a great job to make me hate his acting and this film... the director did an extremely bad job as well. I did not read the book, maybe it was much better and that's why I blame the director and the actor for this ...(balony)!

Don't make my mistake and buy this DVD, if you are that curious go and rent it first then you decide.

The one star is only for the nice DVD cover and an interesting title of the film... the remaining is worth no stars!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: oh yes...
Review: this has to be one of the better recent films i have seen. the film had attracted a lot of controversy, so i figured what the heck, i'll go. and rightfully so. the film is very, very violent (but one wonders how a blatant yuppie like patrick would obtain a chainsaw...) but the violence is just so funny. i, honestly, have never seen a funnier portrayal of yuppies than in this film. the film lacks the book's hilarious use of brand names, but other than that this is solid.

so, why, might you ask, did i not give it 5 stars?

well, first, i'm all senile and stuff, and second, yeah, it can get a bit ridiculously over the top sometimes. but you should still see it.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Are you kidding?
Review: Are you kidding? I mean, this movie has to be the worst i have seen in some time, it not the worst ive ever seen. The story line had potential...so why not use it. Acting on all parts was nothing to be desired, and the murder scenes...my cat does things that grosses me out more. The only thing that I liked about this movie is that I borrowed it before buying it and I could return it.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Solid adpatation of the book - unfortunately
Review: All this talk of dark satire and biting commentary is beginning to sound a little tiresome. Have we really emancipated ourselves to the extent that we can look back so smugly and talk about the "me" generation of the 1980s? The psychotic behavior depicted here has always belonged in the schlock basket, and attempts to elevate it to mainstream cinema strike me as sad.

On the plus side, this is an extremely deft adaptation of the book and the exclusion of the graphic throwaway violence of the latter does not detract from the visceral impact (although maybe one needs to have read it before seeing the movie). Pretentious remarks about cinema aside, the supposed "distancing" of the story through a fifteen-year lens does not offer any priveleged frame of reference. As a satire, social commentary or psychological essay, this movie is hard to stomach.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Yet another example of wasted potential.
Review: American Psycho (Mary Herron, 2000)

Bret Easton Ellis' novel American Psycho is the nadir of the eighties novel; it reads, roughly, like a three hundred page Sharper Image catalog, an endless listing of brand names and prices with nothing even remotely resembling a soul. When the film was released, the critics quickly came to the same conclusion about it. After a few months, however, better reviews of the film began to surface fromindependent critics and the like, calling it a

brilliant satire, wickedly funny, you know, that sort of thing. So I had to rent it. My constant repeating thought was "it can't be as bad as the book."

I was right. That's not saying much.

Christian Bale (who's going to be typecast as a sleazebag if he doesn't watch out) plays Patrick Bateman, a man whose obsession with fitting in to the fast-moving upperclass Wall Street society of his father manifests itself both as an obsession with the brand names of the things he utilizes in his daily routine and as an unstoppable compulsion to murder.

Herron, who's certainly no stranger to ultraviolence (she's directed episodes of Homicide and Oz, as well as the cult hit I Shot Andy Warhol), does manage to capture a certain beauty to Bateman's homicidal rage; there's a particular scene where Bateman is chasing a prostitute (Cara Seymour) down a hallway with a chainsaw that's almost hypnotic. Where the movie fails is in the spaces between. It's almost as if Ellis wrote the novel on a bet-- "can you take a perfectly shallow character and center a whole book around him?" The result, in both book and film, is painfully obvious; it can be done, but it's not that much fun to experience.

This makes it all the more painful that so many wonderful roles surface in this film, not least up-and-comer Chloe Sevigny as Bateman's secretary, a woman who stands out as the true beauty in a shallow world of glamour; Jared Leto (Requiem for a Dream) as Paul Allen, a business partner of Bateman's; Reese Witherspoon as Bateman's oblivious, apoiled fiancee; and Willem Dafoe, as usual, taking a minor role (a homicide detective) and turning it into something palpably creepy.

When all is said and done, there's just not enough good here to counteract the horrid. * 1/2


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