Rating: 
Summary: Devil in a Pinstripe Suit.
Review: Whether we know it or not, many of us have co-workers who are just like Patrick Bateman. On the outside they exude confidence, style, and success, and they know exactly what to say and when to say it. But on the inside lurks a fragmented soul ready to snap at any given moment. Welsh actor Christian Bale, in one of the best performances you will ever see, brings to life Patrick Bateman, the Wall Street yuppie who works at Pierce & Pierce by day and is a serial killer by night. In adapting the controversial and unpleasant book by Bret Easton Ellis, director Mary Harron purges much of the violence and misogyny that made the novel one of the most despised and misunderstood pieces of literature in the last 20 years. What remains is the book's twisted sense of humor. This isn't a slasher film but rather a clever satire on the yuppie lifestyle of the late 1980s. Speaking in a pitch-perfect American accent that recalls a game-show host, Bale perfectly embodies his character physically and emotionally. His performance makes you simultaneously laugh at, pity, and fear Bateman. Jared Leto is also good in his brief role as Paul Allen (in the book it's Paul Owen; why his name is changed in the film, I don't know); Chloë Sevigny also stands out as Patrick's timid assistant, and Reese Witherspoon shines as his clueless and self-absorbed fiancee. This is the unedited version, which has a few additional flashes of nudity in one of the sex scenes. The difference is so minimal, you'd hardly notice it, showing how uptight the MPAA can get when it comes to editing films. Nonetheless, "American Psycho" is a disturbing but clever film that was one of the best of 2000. It comes highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Dull, forgettable, over rated.
Review: American Psycho is kind of a dull movie. Christian Bale's acting is occasionally interesting but the character of Patrick Batemen fails to gel. The oft-cited satire is played in a ham-fisted manner and comes off more as the usual propaganda from the usual suspects then anything revealing or entertaining. I felt the movie was overrated first, because of all the talk of violence when the film was released, and secondly because all the glowing user reviews. Since so many people do seem to like it, I would rate it a rent before deciding to own. This has been a review of the unrated version.
Rating:
Summary: All that money, and Reese Witherspoon too?
Review: What's this guy's problem? I'd be in heaven. Poor, disillusioned Patrick just needs to buy a house in the country, marry-up Reese, and lay down the law about being true to her man. And follow that advice himself by being loyal in return. Man, I'd be set! I mean, he'd be set. Anyways, where was I? Ah, American Psycho. Nothing short of mesmerizing. Patrick Bateman (our old friend, Christian Bale, from two personal favorites of mine, Newsies and Little Women) is a yuppie in the mid 1980's, extremely rich, and extremely messed up. He feels that "Patrick Bateman" isn't a real person, just an idea, a mask he wears. This is probably partly due to the fact that all the yuppies he works and plays with are so much alike, and so self-absorbed, that they can't even keep each other's names straight. Maybe that's what angers him so much that all he really thinks about is killing, dismembering, and even eating his victims. Oh, and '80's music, he's big on '80's music. You know, Phil Collins, Huey Lewis, the best of the '80's at least. As a matter of fact, he loves playing '80's CD's and talking about '80's music trivia as he performs his executions and murders. This is not altogether unnecessary, as it does help to lighten the mood during the violent scenes.
Basically, the film takes us through a particularly difficult time in Patrick's life, when his obsession with killing begins to interfere with his facade of just another young hot shot business man. Competition is the way of life in Patrick's world, and he's beginning to feel the urge to use his hobby in the workplace as an effective tool of business. To put it simply, Patrick is losing control. The pressures at work, his frustration with his Yuppie girlfriend (Witherspoon), his hatred of his friends, and the inquisitions from a certain Detective Kimball (Willem Dafoe), are causing him to be careless and deadly. Simultaneously, he is having to deal with the tiny bit of natural sympathy that still exists within him, mainly for his innocent and naive young secretary who has a serious crush on him. Things keep getting worse and worse for Patrick, so much that he somehow becomes the hero of the picture. No doubt, despite the fact that he's obviously nuts, he really becomes a very sympathetic and likeable character. I'm guessing that this is because everyone else in the film is just such a jerk. Of course, this disturbing feeling of sympathy for a psycho was purely intentional by the filmmakers, but it's fascinating nonetheless. The climax of the film is even more disturbing, and the resolution, downright confusing, but in a fantastic way. American Psycho is one of the best movies out there right now. Definitely a must see film, if not a must own.
Rating:
Summary: Misunderstood
Review: This is one of those movies where you either love it, or you just don't get it at all. It's also one of the few adaptations that is about as good as the book, and at least captures the spirit fairly well. But, it's not for everybody. If you're expecting a comical slasher film with "witty" (re:insipid) humor like in Scream, don't bother.
Firstly, you have to have a somewhat quirky sense of humor. If the first few minutes, where Christian Bale explains his morning routine, consisting of his various hair and skin products, exercises, and clothing options, in a slightly homosexual home shopping network narration, do not make you laugh, you might as well just turn the movie off. If they do make you laugh, then get ready to bust a gut, especially each time Bale screams "I HAVE TO RETURN SOME VIDEOS!"
What most people don't understand is that the movie is a horror film, but not in the conventional sense. Bale plays a successful "Wall Street guy" (the fact that you don't know exactly what he does is intentional) who starts to lose his mind. We take a trip through Bale's 1980s yuppie world, eating with him and his eclectic "friends" at the top restaurants, schmoozing with artists and models, at work, at home, at play. In the beginning, Bale's murderous episodes are infrequent, spur of the moment. Soon however, they become systematic, gaining pace faster and faster until the final mass killing spree. The whole movie is laced with black humor and 80s pop culture. In one scene, Bale kills an associate after explaining to him why he thinks "Sports" is Huey Lewis' best album. Bale gives the best performance of the year, hands down, alternating between cool detachment, comical hysteria, and sheer madness.
The greatness of this film only becomes apparent after a couple of viewings. There are so many little tidbits and story elements that have significance to the meaning of the movie as a whole, it is almost like a literary work.
The point of the movie is that Bale's character does not exist. Physically yes, he is there, but as he says right in the beginning of the movie, he has no real personality. Instead of having an actual personality, with likes, dislikes, feelings, and preferences, Bale is simply a meshpot of social standards. He has the right clothes, right body, right job, right friends, right fiance, went to the right school, and eats at the right restaurant. The fact that he has no real character is highlighted by the fact that a number of times in the movie he is confused with someone entirely different.
The reason Bale's character begins to kill is not because he is disgusted by the materialistic world he lives in, it's because he idolizes it. He sets for himself an impossible standard which he is obsessed, to the point of insanity, of living by. When he fails to achieve those standards, he begins to feel a passionate hatred for himself, and for anyone who is able to live by them. His first killing is of an associate of his, a man who mistakes Bale for someone else. This associate has a better job, a better business card (that part really ticks Bale off), and can get better reservations than Bale. All of this makes Bale feel so inferior, inadequate, and resentful that his maniac inability to be anything less than entirely correct by social standards is displayed when he hacks the associate to pieces with an axe. He then proceeds to use the associate's apartment as a base of operations.
But Bale's wrath is not just limited to those who have it better than him. Prostitutes, homeless people, any random person who isn't attempting or has simply failed to achieve the right yuppie lifestyle disgusts Bale, one one hand because they remind him of his own inadequacy, and on the other hand because he so desperately wants the world to be brand name perfect. He needs to feel superior, he needs to feel that he is the most "adequate", so he plays power games against characters from the underbelly of society that end with him killing them.
There are dozens of clever twists and witty scenes in the movie, but the end contains the biggest twist of all. If you're really clever, you might see it coming, but you have to pick up on two minute things. First, the fact that almost all of Bale's acquaintences think he's a sissy, and that the murders become progressively less plausible. When it is revealed, we realize the horror of the movie is not in the murders, but something far more unsettling. Insanity is probably the biggest faux pas in this yuppie world where the standard is to keep everything nice, pleasant, and expensive, and in the end we find out just entirely how much Bale's soul is corrupted by his obsession with this standard. It is all summed up by his final line in the movie: "Whatever..."
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious masterpiece, but misunderstood
Review: I started reading through the reviews of this movie, and over and over, I had to click on "No," this review was not "helpful" to me, whether the person gave it one star or five stars. After reading about 20 of them, I was beginning to think that either everyone watching it just isn't getting it or I'm as whacked out as Patrick Bateman. My take on this movie seems to be completely different from everyone else's (although I didn't read all 300 reviews: maybe someone in here has my take on it). First let me state my perspective. Judged by how many times I've watched it (about 10 times), this must be one of my favorite movies. I don't seem to be able to get enough of it, and my interpretation of it has evolved from bemused bafflement to a satisfied feeling that I really get it. Second, I did not read the book, and based on what I've read in these reviews, I'm glad I didn't, because I've been able to contemplate this movie without trying to relate it to the book, to contemplate it as an independent work of art that plays with the viewer's mind and challenges the viewer to figure this Patrick Bateman out. Those people responsible for it may have had some ideas triggered by the book, but this movie can stand on its own considerable merits. Unlike some reviewers, I am not in the least attracted by the character of Patrick Bateman. I find him completely contemptible and repulsive, and to allude to a line from the movie, I have nothing in common with him. Yet he is fascinating to watch and I can't help laughing hysterically at his total emptiness and delusions. Delusions bring up the point I want to make about this movie. At one level it is impossible to tell what is real and what is sheer delusion in Patrick Bateman's mind. What is really happening, and what is being imagined or dreamed by Patrick? Maybe he did kill a few people in this movie. But I can't tell whether he really did killed Paul Allen or whether this was merely one of his delusional fantasies. The movie surely gives enough examples of psychotic delusions on his part. Some of the things he says directly to women obviously were not actually said, because if they were, the women would have called for the bouncer to have him thrown out. As it was, they just ignore him. Some of the murders were utterly preposterous, as when he carefully aims the running chainsaw at the prostitute fleeing down the stairs and he throws it at her, stabbing her in the back when she is four flights of stairs below him. Come on! That never happened, even in the movie! Then the killing spree at the end OBVIOUSLY never happened! When he had the shootout with the cops, he takes a couple shots at them, never missing his human target from 100 yards away (do you know how hard that is?), and suddenly one of his bullets causes all the cop cars aligned against him to explode! Even HE is surprised, suddenly staring at his gun in disbelief that he could have done that with a single shot. This was such a string of carnage that it would have been all over the news and all the talk. Yet no one says a word about it when he meets with his associates the next day. When he revisits the apartment where he had dead bodies hanging in every closet, the place is pristine and is for sale. There's not a word from anyone that an apartment was found full of mutilated bodies. Why? Obviously, because it was all in his imagination! After he breaks down and confesses to his lawyer that he just went on a killing spree, he lawyer laughs because it is so preposterous. Such a thing would have made the headlines, yet the lawyer thinks it's just a sick joke, and he saw Paul Allen in London the day Patrick was supposed to have killed him. Yet there is ambiguity even here. All these Wall Street stockbrokers (every one of them younger than 30 and vice-presidents whose greatest status symbols are the classiness of their business cards and where they can get dinner reservations), all of them look and act alike and they are constantly misidentifying each other. Was it really Paul Allen he killed (if he killed one of his associates at all), was it really Paul Allen the lawyer saw in London? It is impossible to say, which is one of the most amusing ironies of this eternally entertaining movie.
Rating:
Summary: Buy all Christian
Review: I'm a Balehead, I admit it, so I will always get Christian's movies, but this one has to be taken with a grain of salt. Is it meant to be horror? I think not, it's pure comedy. I laughed my a** off. Christian did an amazing job, as in every other movie he's ever done, and I had to skip back so I could hear my favorite lines again. I love his toilette scene, he's worse than any woman in the world. I loved his bluntness, his honesty. No matter how sick he is, you want to be a part of him because everyone has that little thing in them that wants to tell people exactly what they think or feel. I understand that people who have read the book want it to be truer to it, but as anyone knows very few movies follow the books exactly, how do you think Stephen King feels about his stuff? If you are a Balehead, of course this will have to be a part of your collection, but I think even if I wasn't one I would find this movie hilarious, disturbing yes, but I found Monster's Ball much more disturbing and it won awards?
Rating:
Summary: Blood, Gore, Bad Acting, Lacking Plot
Review: This film is a half baked version of the book. This movie was obviouly thrown togather to attract a simple minded gore lover. The story line is very basic and the end is a rediculous faust of a film ending. Its as if the director knew that this movie was going to be bad so he just quit it all Do Not Buy This ... It is Terrible
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Dark Comedy...
Review: This movie was about a total psycho, Patrick (Christian Bale), who has a lust for killing people. Patrick is very vain and kills people very casually, it's humorous how bazaar he is. I thought it was pretty funny, but a little too weird at times. I wouldn't reccomend it to just anyone, not all people are able to find humor in a crazy businessman that goes around on killing sprees.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!!
Review: One of the funniest movies I've ever seen and a great commentary on the 80's. I loved the scene in which main character Patrick goes on and on about his favorite pop bands and then wacks his friend's head off. Be warned.....by the end of the movie your stomach will hurt from laughing. :-)
Rating:
Summary: Hidden Tests
Review: Go to "Extras". There press one time the "up" - Button and then "Enter". Now you can test yourself with two hidden games.
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