American Psycho (dir. Mary Harron, 2000) - EveryFilmIWatch Review

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The sharp satire of Mary Harron's iconic ‘American Psycho’ works on two levels. There's the explicit, aggressive satire of white collar psychopathy that launches itself off the screen from the very first scene. And then there's a more specific nuanced satire of a certain type of self-loathing American businessman, an emerging class at the time the film was released in 2000, just as the hangover from the financial binge of the 90s had started to set in. The iconic protagonist Patrick Bateman is indiscriminately addicted to violence and, like any addict, swings helplessly between hating the state of his own life and desperately seeking out a hit strong enough to keep up with his own misery.

The parallels to the endless churning of the New York financial markets and the desperate, clawing greed that had fuelled them are barely worth pointing out. The secret knowledge that both Bateman's increasingly violent antics and the hubristic excess of that financial era would eventually come crashing down hangs over the film like a guillotine (or a chainsaw in an apartment block stairwell in this case). And the silently inevitable threat of the terror attacks and dot-com bubble of the new millennium create a kind of mindless, almost gleefully ignorant atmosphere, fuelled by people in suits more interested in dinner reservations and colour swatches than economic stability and the Y2K problem.

In a strange sense, Bateman represents a heroic anti-hero, a bitter antidote to the ludicrous, revolting world that he inhabits. There's certainly no denying the scopophilic thrill we as the audience derive from his flagrant flouting of the social rules that command the existences of the others around him. His mockingly sincere assessment of the imbalances of society that hold rapt an audience of cocaine addicted, Ivy League conspicuous consumers is deeply satisfying to witness, and his ability to cut to the heart of people's motivations and flaws is refreshing. But just as the antidote to the rampant financial doings of the 90s was sobering and costly, Bateman's clarity is paid for in blood and mania. One of the most entertaining, memorable films of this century. Riotous and infallibly smart.

EveryFilmIWatch is multi-channel film review project run by Sebastian Cox, ScriptUp co-founder. Further reviews can be found on Instagram.