American Psycho (2000)

Of all the horrors on Netflix I hadn't seen, this was the one I'd heard about the most. Partly, I suppose, because it's relatively old. My visiting friend hadn't seen it either, so we chose our viewing quickly.

In 1987, Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale, five years before he dropped the E from "Bateman") is a Wall Street investment banker with a luxurious lifestyle, often going to upscale restaurants with co-workers. That doesn't mean he enjoys it; as his first-person narration indicates, he can feel only greed and disgust, even toward ostensible fiancée Evelyn (Reese Witherspoon). At first, the only clear sign of something wrong with him is that he needs little provocation to make gory threats. Then his bloodlust grows beyond his full control, no longer reserved for envied colleagues and homeless people. How long can he hope to get away with murder?

Patrick is no Tom Ripley. His charisma dissipates within a few minutes, what with his relentless contempt and rudeness, sometimes veering into bigotry. He targets innocent animals as readily as humans. When he's not thinking murderous thoughts, he's pursuing misogynistic sexual relationships with multiple women (a bigger contributor to the R rating than the violence). He has no redeeming virtues, unless you count his apparent worry that he'll hurt Evelyn if they don't break up first. And despite a fair amount of knowledge, he's not particularly clever in his methods.

That said, we can't tell how much of the story is supposed to be "true." It gets pretty surreal by the third act, with at least one moment clearly a hallucination or dream on Patrick's part. Maybe he attacks only in his fantasies.

Like many fictional maniacs, Patrick has a strong interest in music, often dissonant with the situation. That ties into the admirable soundtrack, which helps remind us which decade we're looking at. Along with his repeated false excuse of needing to return videos, a go-to reference in retrospectives on the late 20th century.

The setting matters primarily for reasons of satire. We undertand a few factors contributing to Patrick's frustration. Indeed, I don't see AP as a horror movie after all. It's a character study first and foremost.

A classic story? Not in my book, tho maybe in the Bret Easton Ellis book on which it's based. There's just enough to maintain my interest for the 102 minutes. Still, I'm glad I watched when my friend could be there, if only so we could interpret it together.