American Psycho Movie Trailer

Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) is an attractive young businessman, reaching the peak of his late twenties during the 1980’s. His job title is as immaterial to the audience as it is to Bateman himself, who is far more interested in where to be seen, what to be seen in and who to be seen with as he rides the yuppie trend. But Bateman’s obsession with shallow tokens of money and fashion is only rivaled by his bloodlust, which drives him to mutilate, murder and maul without remorse until his crimes begin to catch up with him.

If the introduction, the title and the many screenshots of Christian Bale wielding all kinds of household tools while splattered in blood weren’t enough to warn you: American Psycho is not for the faint hearted. It is originally based on a book of the same name by Bret Easton Ellis, which had to be considerably watered down to be a plausible screenplay for audiences and received criticism for its themes of sexual and physical abuse against women. Whether the Patrick Bateman of the novel had a hatred of women is debatable, but onscreen Bateman is willing to kill anything and everything that stumbles into his path without even a touch of guilt.

Like many psychopaths, Bateman wants to fit in and walk among the rest of the world unnoticed for what he truly is, which is why he becomes so obsessed with the details of the fashion of his particular era. A work colleague with a superior business card to his own has a deeper impact on Bateman than any one of the women and men who meet their sticky end on his lounge floor to the sounds of Genesis or Huey Lewis and the News, and depending on your sense of humor, American Psycho is actually a very black comedy and an excellent and clever satire.

Christian Bale has received more than his fare share of criticism for over dramatic outbursts, but in my opinion this is one of his best performances as charming but demonic Patrick Bateman. There are times when you can sense his hysterical desperation and marvel at the complete glee he takes at some of the murders, but American Psycho never gives in and allows us to believe that there’s something salvageable about Bateman.

He desperately wants to feel something, but not even his beautiful, privileged and ultimately self-centered girlfriend (Reese Witherspoon) or his endearing secretary (Cara Seymour) mean anything to him. Willem Dafoe plays the detective who eventually catches on to the string of horrific deaths surrounding our protagonist and Jared Leto appears as a rival yuppie who keeps besting Bateman in their shallow world of fashionable restaurants and hair products, but there’s no doubt that Christian Bale steals the show.

It’s difficult to say whether I would recommend American Psycho. I find it funny and fascinating, but there’s more unwarranted violence here than most people could stomach, and you obviously have to have a very specific sense of humor to pick out the satire and irony between tramps being kicked to death and chainsaws being taken to prostitutes. The other problem is that American Psycho is the story of Patrick Bateman, who makes for a very interesting subject with a severe mental disorder but is not the kind of man who you could sympathize with.

If you do feel for this relentless murderer, you have bigger problems to deal with then picking your next movie to watch. American Psycho is not a moral story and without saying too much, there aren’t any Disney endings here. Personally I love the honesty of a film that doesn’t shy away from the story it’s telling to please the audience and I’m not the type of person who gets morally outraged faster than you can say “politically correct”.

American Psycho was made to be enjoyed. It’s not a documentary, it’s just entertainment like a film should be, so if you think that you can put aside the blood and guts and watch it for Christian Bale’s wild-eyed performance (apparently based on a TV interview with Tom Cruise) and the creative use of the work of Phil Collins, it’s unmissable.

American Psycho Movie Trailer

Fight Club is set in a gritty and stale reality, where our protagonist has managed to cut himself off from any friends or family he might once have known and sticks to the same rules and targets he has always known. It’s only when he meets Tyler that he takes a step back and realizes that he’s living for the sake of living and doing a job he hates so he can earn enough money to buy things he doesn’t need. There are obvious parallels that we can probably all draw between his life and our own, which is what makes it so fascinating and enthralling to see someone rebel against the same things that box us in. Fight Club is all about breaking the rules and doing exactly what you want to do without considering the consequences, and Tyler Durden is the epitome of that: a fully grown man who has no fear, who never thinks first. The cinematography reflects this through Tyler pausing mid-film to speak directly to the camera and the purposefully stretched and dirtied film quality; even the warning at the start of the film suggests that the viewer stops wasting their life reading the small print.

It’s well known that Edward Norton picks and chooses the projects he gets involved with based on the quality of the script. I’ve started to take his name on the credits as a watermark of quality, and Fight Club is a perfect example of that. It received a tepid reception when it was first released in 1999, but has since risen to fame as a cult film and has been taken to heart by my generation as a story of rebellion and escapism. Norton is strangely charming despite playing a buttoned down coward and a cynical pessimist for the majority of the film, and his warped view of life and overdramatic hypochondria give Fight Club a dark comedic edge. Brad Pitt’s role as Tyler Durden is one of my favorites of his performances onscreen, because his portrayal of what is essentially an overgrown teenager who’s never quite grasped the concept of rules is so enthusiastic and exciting; he manages to be childish, dangerous and sexy in one unpredictable package. You spend the film wavering between supporting Durden and the protagonist and Norton and Pitt have genuine chemistry together.

Reese Witherspoon was originally considered for the role of Marla Singer, the woman that wanders into our protagonist’s life and seems to spread poison through everything she touches. Considering Helena Bonham Carter’s Marla is constantly shrouded in a cloud of cigarette smoke and is the sort of woman who would stub it out on a passing small animal, I find it impossible to imagine Witherspoon’s blonde and innocent persona fitting the part as perfectly as Bonham Carter. She brings with her the sort of twisted dark humor she’s famed for and her delicate figure, pale skin and dark eyes and hair somehow make her perfectly suited to play our protagonists counterpart, who he hates because she reminds him of himself.

It’s difficult to exactly pinpoint what genre Fight Club falls under. It’s too dark to be just a comedy, and doesn’t take itself seriously enough to be a drama. It’s psychological, original, refreshing and cleverly amusing, and probably the most quoted film of its decade; it’s hard to find someone who hasn’t at least once heard the famous phrase “The first rule of fight club is: you do not talk about fight club. The second rule…” Fight Club won’t be enjoyable for everyone. It has been voted one of the best ‘guy movies’ of all time and it will appeal to anyone who enjoys watching films for the escapism and perhaps feels a little trapped in their lives or simply those who like a movie filled with dry humor and a unique and well written story. But if you prefer your cinema with a sunny outlook and light jokes about people turning up to the wrong dinner parties, watching Edward Norton talk about spilling oil onto beaches and killing pandas probably isn’t the best viewing choice for you.

One of the addicts is Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn), who’s got two “problems”: sugar and TV. She’s spending too much time watching a game show whose host (Christopher McDonald) leads his audience to chant “We got a winner!”. Sara gets a phone call that misleads her into thinking she might appear as a guest in the show. That’s when she realizes she’s not fit for TV like this and embarks into a weight loss program based on diet pills.

As she’s losing weight, something is happening to her brains too. Even if she’s having hallucinations, her doctor doesn’t pay attention to this. As she’s increasing the dose, so is she losing her mind.

Her son, Harry (Jared Leto) is suffering from a less “exotic” addiction, but more expensive too. He’s always taking his mom’s TV to the pawn-shop to get the money for his drugs, while she’s recovering it so that she can feed her own addiction. His girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly) and best friend Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) are also addicts, always looking for a big score that “will get us back on track”.

One recurring scene, the key to the movie, is used to show how the drugs take effect and how mechanical everything is for these addicts: one extreme closeup to the pills/fix, injection/swallowing/sniffing. The pupils dilate. The sounds are extremely strong and all happens in fast-motion, since drugs don’t need to much to take effect.

The movie is absolutely “painful” and amazingly depicts how desperate addicts are for a “shot” and how their lives get destroyed by this addiction that leaves no place for anything else. Some of the scenes and shocking, the entire movie is not something to enjoy seeing. It’s that kind of a movie you see once and wouldn’t see again. Not because it’s bad, but because it has left you speechless.

This is not a “feel-good” movie, there’s no fun in it. As there is no fun in being addicted. And, after seeing this movie, I really doubt anyone would enjoy a “joint” anymore. Even if it’s not suitable for adolescents, I’d surely show it to my kids if they ever thought about messing with any “substances”. If this is not a wake-up call, then nothing is.

Please watch the movie and be prepared to be amazed. It’s worth the effort.