Movie Review: American Psycho (2000)

The movie stars Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, Reese Witherspoon, Samantha Mathis and Josh Lucas.

My wife has wanted to see this particular movie for some time now so, when we saw Netflix planned on removing it soon, we decided to finally get around to watching it last night. As it turns out, the movie was somewhat interesting but wasn’t quite what we expected it to be.

Since we are both big fans of low-budget slasher films, one of the things that attracted us about this movie was the idea of it being from the murderer’s perspective, allowing us to see what goes on inside his head and motivates him to kill.

And, to be fair, the movie does a halfway decent job of this. My wife and I both loved how he was obsessed over his body to the point he had a very strict workout routine and a daily ritual that included a large stack of beauty products ranging from masks to various moisturizers.  Plus, I personally loved how he would end up snapping over something as simple as one of his coworkers having a better business card than he did.

I should also mention Bale did a surprisingly good job with the character. There were times I couldn’t stand him, for obvious reasons. But, at the same time, there were also times when I could relate simply because he, ironically, seemed to be the sanest person in the room.

My biggest problem with this movie is there honestly wasn’t enough emphasis on the murdering. Instead, the film seemed to be much more focused on his sex obsession, to the point it almost reached soft-core porn levels. While I can somewhat understand his need for the sex (likely related to his need to be in control at all times), the film probably would have been slightly better if they would have been edited down a little bit more.

While not a terrible movie, I do think the film failed to achieve its full potential, in part because it ended up being more of a porn movie than a serious film about a serial killer. I have a feeling someone might attempt to remake this movie a decade or two from now and, perhaps then, the film will be as good as expected.

My Grade: C