The press material for the new film American Psycho begins: "Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho was perhaps the most controversial and hotly-debated novel of the last decade." Change the words "controversial and hotly-debated" to "loathed and reviled," and the publicity would better reflect popular opinion. For Ellis' tale of a Wall Street vp who moonlights as a serial killer, with its detailed descriptions of torture and mayhem, was dismissed with critical scorn and mainstream revulsion.

Sometimes, though, the worst books make the most interesting movies. An insightful screenwriter and clever director can distill 400 over-ripe pages into a lean, compelling two hours--getting rid of the schlock and amplifying the core message--and, presto, movie magic. The first hour of American Psycho accomplishes such a transformation, but then the film unfortunately falls prey to its protagonist.

Writer and director Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol) has spent a considerable amount of effort on talk shows and in newspapers arguing that American Psycho is, in reality, not a tale of bloodlust but rather a biting satire of the status-obsessed '80s. The film certainly starts out that way. After a wonderful credits sequence that pokes fun at fancy restaurants that substitute fashion for food, the movie focuses on a quartet of young, upscale men arguing over the pecking order of particular restaurants and noticing which celebrities are eating at theirs.

One of the four is the movie's title character, Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale, Velvet Goldmine). A vice president of a large Wall Street brokerage house, he spends most of his time arranging his social calendar, trying to get dinner reservations at the best establishments, and vying with his friends over the smallest elements of status. In fact, it's not at all clear what Bateman gets paid to do. Every scene in his office (a surprisingly ascetic room with little light) involves figuring where and with whom he's going to eat. Oh, and also haranguing his secretary (Chloe Sevigny, Boys Don't Cry) over what she wears. The only hints of his professional position occur when he's trying to impress various women with his job title.

This ongoing joke reaches its acme in a hilarious scene where an assortment of vice presidents (all men) compare their new business cards. As each one tries to top the other with a particular font and card stock, the deadpan deliveries are wonderful. Even better is Bateman's reaction of barely-controlled envy. His jealousy froths over when fellow vp Paul Allen (Jared Leto, Urban Legend) is acknowledged as the winner of the business card battle.

On his way home, Bateman finds a homeless man and proceeds to torment him with the possibility of help. But Bateman has no intention of sharing his wealth. With a cry of "I don't have anything in common with you," he stabs the old man to death.

This contrast of rich and poor, along with the questioning of our society's barometers of success, is not only a critique of the Reagan '80s but could easily be read as an indictment of our current societal infatuations. America's obsession with the stock market and its barely disguised envy at the dot.com-millionaires matches Bateman's fixations perfectly. Furthermore, a provocative article in the New York Times a few weeks ago asserted that not only has the income gap widened considerably in America, but now the rich have almost no contact with any other strata of society, much less the poor.

Bateman's victims aren't just the poor and downtrodden, though. Soon, he tracks Paul Allen down and, to the tune of Huey Lewis' "Hip to Be Square," kills him with an ax. At the risk of sounding inappropriate, this scene is riotously funny. The juxtaposition of Bateman's preparations (he puts a transparent raincoat over his thousand-dollar suit), Allen's fatuous bragging, and the incongruous background music is genuinely amusing, despite the gruesome subtext.

Bateman disposes the body and apparently gets away with the murder, until detective Donald Kimball (Willem Dafoe, Platoon) comes calling. The office confrontation between Kimball and Bateman is a great piece of acting and editing. Dafoe, in particular, has the perfect blend of pauses and creepy smiles, and Bateman's inability to figure out what Kimball knows is effective.

Unfortunately, the film descends quickly from there. Rather than focus on the cat-and-mouse game of detective and suspect or the status contests of Bateman and his co-workers, American Psycho chronicles Bateman's increasingly frequent moments of murder. First, there are two scenes of potential but averted homicide, then a whole litany of dead bodies. This climaxes with a particularly awful scene when a naked Bateman chases a  prostitute with a chainsaw. Like the earlier scene with Allen, this too is played for laughs, but it rings all wrong here. The amount of gore (there is a tremendous amount of blood) and the filmmaker's failure to connect this rampage with the earlier themes of success or envy make it wildly inappropriate. While some audience members chortled in glee, my overwhelming reaction was, this isn't something we should be laughing at.

The last half-hour of American Psycho is even worse. Bateman inexplicably starts to break down, which leads to a dreadful teary confession to his lawyer. And the ending, which resolutely refuses to offer any explanation or conclusion, seems designed solely to stick its thumb in the audience's eye.

For all the movie's faults, Christian Bale is spectacular. He gives Bateman a shallowness that would seem wooden in other contexts but is pure emptiness here. And his rare moments of emotion (fury, disgust, jealousy) are wonderfully modulated. It's hard to believe that Leonardo DiCaprio was the first choice to play Bateman. The role demands (and receives) a highly masculine portrayal, and DiCaprio might be the most feminine male star to come out of Hollywood in some time.

Bale is helped immeasurably by sound designers Henry Embry and Jane Tattersall, who give Bale's voice an incredible mix of menacing reverb and hollow flatness. Director Harron doesn't do much with the camera, however. American Psycho is visually uninteresting, and her use of New York architecture is surprisingly ineffective. The other actors don't have much to do, though Sevigny gives another strong performance as the insecure receptionist. American Psycho is better than its source material, but that unfortunately isn't saying much. 

J. Robert Parks 4/25/2000