|
American Psycho
(****)
It's interesting that some of the best films I've seen in the last year and a half have been in this vein. American Psycho is dark and mean in many respects, but underneath it all is a truly gleeful sense of humor. Sure, there are several murders in the movie. But it's how they're committed that keeps the movie from turning into a run of the mill slasher.
Christian Bale stars as Patrick Bateman, a man on Wall Street as soulless as everyone else around him. For all practical purposes, Patrick is simply a pretty face. But there's something more to Patrick. In the "me first" generation of the 80's, he's found himself feeling absolutely nothing. "There is no real me" he states early on. He takes his soullessness one step further than the people around him; he's killed so many people that he's lost count.
On the surface he fits in with his surroundings. To everyone around him, he's a boring drip. He's confused by Paul Allen (Leto) for another executive because Bateman "looks like him". He really doesn't, but they occupy space in much the same way.
That's the key to American Psycho. Here's a guy who is so bland no one even notices him. He doesn't recognize humanity as being anything but something he can destroy if he wants to. And when he finally wants to take credit for it, he certainly has to scramble.
It's obvious that American Psycho is a satire. It's meant to be taken seriously in its issues, but not seriously in the specifics. It's a great tribute to director Mary Harron that she chose to look at American Psycho from the standpoint of a satirical bent rather than the age old slasher.
What does this say about society as a whole? Have we reached the point where we are so wrapped up in our petty selves that it's easy to stand just outside it all and poke fun at us? After all, the best movies in the last 2 years have been the ones to say; "hey, look how stupid this is". Fight Club took our bland take on materialism and bent it head over heels. 3 Kings took our conceptions on the Gulf War and turned it into a media driven screw loose ride through the desert.
I offer no solutions, but I have my own opinions. I encourage all you readers to come up with your own take on it.