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American Psycho

American Psycho

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Not as good as the book
Review: American Pscyho is the most terrifying novel I have read. It gave me a very disturbing feeling that lasted more than a week. The film, on the other hand, fails to convey such a feeling. I don't know know why, but as i was watching the film,I thought it lacked that sharp and disturbing feeling.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Lousy. Boring. Does the novel a disservice.
Review: AMERICAN PSYCHO, the novel, was a work of art. I didn't particularly enjoy it and I never want to read it again, but it was one of the most disturbing, effective pieces of writing I've ever encountered. And it succeeded as social commentary as well.

AMERICAN PSYCHO, the movie, is a piece of garbage. The social commentary is largely absent. Much, much more of Bateman's narrative from the novel would've added so much to the film. Many of the important encounters; sexual, criminal, and otherwise are left out altogether and those that make their way to the screen are butchered (no pun intended) in such a way that they are only remotely similar to episodes in the original novel. Pretend even that the novel never existed - this film would still be a disaster. Bateman's a killer. He kills a few people (20-40 he confesses at the film's end, though we only see three or four encounters on film) and then we're left with the necessary "twist" at the end. Characters and situations introduced early in the film are seemingly forgotten. Sure, the point is that he's an emotionless murderer surrounded by shallow people, but even the small amount of character development afforded by the source material is ignored.

Christian Bale is perfectly cast, and therefore, all the more tragically wasted in this wreck of a film. There's no shock, no emotion, no peaks at all in this movie. Just one fine performance buried under an unremarkably directed slaughter of Ellis' work.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Less Than Zero?
Review: Maybe the reviewers read this one or The Informers and mistook them for American Psycho, amd maybe Mary Harron did the same. The movie bears only a fleeting resemblance to the book and misses the point entirely. Aside from that, it was poorly done. I would click over and buy the book...you will be deeply disturbed by it. As for the movie, skip it!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: NO MORE MR NICE GUY
Review: The only words that were coming to my mind while watching AMERICAN PSYCHO were " Stop it ! It's too much ". Too much blood, too much satire, too much of everything. I haven't read the Bret Easton Ellis novel but what is certain is that literature allows a lot of liberties cinema simply can not translate in images unless you are Jean-Luc Godard or Orson Welles.

AMERICAN PSYCHO tries to describe a peculiar world, the world of the 1980 New-York yuppies. These yuppies are very snob without the cultural background found in, let's say for instance, the englishmen of the first part of the XXth century. They are like empty shells, living a life of fast money, expensive restaurants and uninteresting social activities. Well, they don't particularly bother me as long as they stay in their artificial world. And I can easily imagine to what kind of excess easy money can drive a man who has not a solid moral history.

If I have understood well the purpose of the authors of AMERICAN PSYCHO, the movie, apart of this harsch critique of the yuppie world, would like to convince us that money and power could eventually lead someone to believe that he can be a new god, deciding who has the right to live and who should die, without being worried by consequences. Patrick Bateman, after a slow start, becomes less and less prudent and finally commit murders in the open light. Like the serial killers he admires, he wants unconsciously to be recognized. The movie often hesitates between the satire, the not so fairy tale, the horror and the moral genre, so feel free to have your own opinion about it.

A DVD zone Manhattan (New-York only ).

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Cool Elegance
Review: What a wonderful movie this is! The triumph of form over content portrayed with icy precision. Characters acknowledge each other mostly in terms of self-absorbed one-upsmanship. Surface and ritual reign supreme, indeed characters confuse each other's identities with neither thought nor consequence. Sex, for Patrick Bateman (as probably for all others) is an expression of vanity and power, nothing more. Patrick Bateman's only moments of true passion and fulfillment occur when he kills. Irony and paradox: does he kill so as to feel alive and vibrant, or does he kill precisely to feed his need to suppress feeling, like an alcoholic drinks to suppress his need for alcohol. Feelings, after all, are messy, not very elegant. Irony itself conveys a measure of elegance. Thus the movie comments on itself. AmPsy is not really satire. There is no real madness or wackiness here, nor does it carry that element of pratfall, grotesquerie, reality turned inside out to affirm itself, which underly satiric points. It's a disquisition on a decade, a perspective, a way of being that is still very much part of us today. Perhaps now we do it a bit more vulgarly. There is keen pleasure in realizing that the camera itself, more than words, is the scalpel for the irony which defines this chilly tale. I bet the screenplay is relatively short. Don't miss this film. It's also very funny. You just have to meet Patrick Bateman, a really swell guy.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Don't waste your money on this one
Review: This movie tried to be funny. It failed. It tried to make a statement about materialism. It failed, instead betraying admiration for all the material things it purported to condemn--fancy restaurants, luxury apartments, limos, cosmetics and the rest. It tried to be shocking. I yawned.

We were supposed to believe that the characters were high-powered Wall Street types, yet we never saw a single instance of them doing the work that earned them their astronomical salaries. All they did was make reservations and compare business cards.

The lead actor hammed up his part so much that his character lost all believability. Cloe Sevigny, a genuinely talented actor, was wasted. Poor Willem Dafoe. He aimlessly walked and talked through the middle of this mess, then disappeared.

Most good movies have a beginning, a middle and an end. American Psycho, however, was a plotless amalgam of unfunny restaurant scenes, boring sex and comic-book-type violence. No story was told, no characters were developed.

Many of the scenes insulted the viewer's intelligence. How can a killer drag a blood-leaking body across the floor of an apartment-building lobby and never be discovered? How can he chase a screaming woman through the halls and down the stairs of another apartment building, in the middle of New York City, and never draw attention?

How could anyone company American Psycho with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Next to Robert Louis Stevenson's inspired psychological thriller, American Psycho is a nursery rhyme.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: This is not an Exit
Review: The title may throw you but this is not some cut 'em up horror flick. I was laughing out loud when I saw this film and the evilness of Bateman (Bale) was so quirky that it made his character likeable, well as likeable as a murderer can be. The way the yuppie lifestyle is portrayed is pure genius and great performances by all especially Bale and Defoe make this film a wonderful black comedy. This movie may be criticsized for making people insensitive to murder and somehow glamourizing serial killings but this glamourization is essential in capturing the sociopathic nature of the character in such an egocentric time in America's history. If you buy this film you will be thoroughly pleased. Side note: For an even deeper disection of the mind of the yuppie serial killer read the novel American Psycho, you wont be able to put it down.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best Film In The Category Type
Review: Recommend this to anyone out there that likes a good heavy violent film ...... I have watched this about 10 times now and have yet to get borred .. It is a bit over the top in places which make it quite ammusing.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: American Psycho
Review: It was a great movie. But the only reason Im on here is to ask why are there no movies that has a regular format Because no one wants a widescreen verion

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Close, very close...
Review: I'm one of the many fans of Bret Easton Ellis' master work of psychology and satire that is his book "American Psycho". Christian Blae plays an excellent Patrick Bateman, and communicating just how close he is to the edge all the time. Unfortuantely, Mr. Bale is the shining light in an otherwise run of the mill psychological thriller. As is the satus quo for most books made in to movies, the book far outstrips the film. I understand the reduction in graphic violence, and the fact the film barely touched on his obession with brand names (clearance issues, I assume). Mr. Bale provides a number laugh out loud moments. Any scence, where the main character runs around an apartment building, naked, splattered with blood, with a running chainsaw can do nothing but make me laugh. The movie did communicate the sense of satire better than the book, the book may have been to horrifying for me to see the satire. Its a good movie if you haven't read the book. If you've seen it and feel unfulfilled, pick up a copy of the book, it will make a lot more since.


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