American Psycho

Peyton Manning

I was motivated to start this thread after watching American Psycho the other night.

I had seen it when I was young, maybe about 13 or 14 and back then I never really appreciated a good storyline or great acting - it was all about guns and explosions (True Lies ranked high as you can imagine ). But now that I have really gotten into analysing films the past few years, Ive decided that Christian Bale's performance in American Psycho is the best I have ever seen.

SPOILER:

The scene where Bateman gets Paul Allen drunk and brings him back to his apartment, and starts playing the Hughey Lewis CD and talking about it, while simultaneously putting on a raincoat and fetching his axe - it is just a splendid scene. The psychotic pitch to his voice, the insane rambling about Hughey Lewis - it was awesome.

Its an amazing, amazing film. Please discuss.

Dont be at yourself

That scene is a definite classic, as is the movie itself. Also excellent is the scene where they're all comparing their business cards, it's so tense!

That film convinced me that Bale would make an excellent Batman too, which was nice.

Peyton Manning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-hUkO13Fy8

For those who wish to remember this scene... (Over 18s only, viwer discretion)

Gotta love the dancing

Zapp Brannigan

Really good film. Raging that I missed it the other night!

I especially love the whole mind-**** element to it, to this day I'm still not certain if it was all real or in his head!

Souness

Not a patch on the book..my feeling is the film leads the viewer to believe he was imagining it all...whereas in the book the impression is of peoples apathy in our consumerist society for anything but wealth/possesions means that no one cares what he has done!

Jello

Watched it for the first time the other night and thought it was brilliant.. there's so many memorable scenes still in my head from watching it. Christian Bale was indeed fantastic (he'd be up there now with Edward Norton in American History X in my listings for that performance).

leeroybrown

I've never actually watched the film as I've always felt that it would be a letdown compared to the book which ranks among my favorites. I'll have to watch it at some stage.

Peyton Manning

I'll tell you another thing, only in American Psycho would you see a murder scene with THAT music in the background..

Petey2006

Souness wrote:

Not a patch on the book..my feeling is the film leads the viewer to believe he was imagining it all...whereas in the book the impression is of peoples apathy in our consumerist society for anything but wealth/possesions means that no one cares what he has done!

Bang on. It's a terrible adaptation. The book is shocking, not just in it's violence, but also in respect to how Bateman's able to get away with murder so easily. People are so inherently self-absorbed that they literally don't notice people going missing.
The addition of the chainsaw scene was absolutely ridiculous, reducing Bateman to some sort of Leatherface bad-guy and was a jarring departure from the book. And yet they leave out chapters like 'Killing child at zoo,' which, while absolutely sadistic, just goes to show how much of a psycho Bateman is.

However, Christian Bale was cast perfectly as Bateman. Inspired. And the scene with the business cards was captured perfectly. Otherwise, terrible film. Read the book.

Galvasean

I'm a huge fan of both the book and the film. i have to say that a lot of things in the book simply could not have been committed to film at the time, and probably couldn't be today either. For what it is the film is great.
If you want something eve darker then go for the book.

Clairecluck

AAAAAAAAAaahhh, the scene in the book where he puts the blade into the homeless guys eye while his little dog looked on! was on the bus when i read that and nearly puked on the stranger beside me! It's an effin great book - and film:D

StarryBud

Petey2006 wrote:

The addition of the chainsaw scene was absolutely ridiculous, reducing Bateman to some sort of Leatherface bad-guy and was a jarring departure from the book.

Did you miss the part of the film where Bateman is watching The Texas Chain Saw Massacre on TV?

In the book Bateman is obsessed with (if I remember correctly) The Toolbox Murders. I'd imagine it was changed because no-one's heard of TTM.

Sad Professor

The film has it's moments, mainly humorous ones involving Bale (who's brilliant) but it's no where the masterpiece that the book is. The problem isn't the lack of violence per se but that the director kinda zoomed in on the misogynistic element while ignoring the book's deeper layers. The film is just too safe, it's too easy to laugh at Bateman. Ellis really takes you inside his head and forces you to try and understand this guy.

Arctic_Monkeh

Ive never read the book....only seen the film and i extremely enjoyed it...

But eff that, im going to buy that bloody book!!!

rudie-

i felt that the chainsaw scene really lets the film down, the scenes with the hookers are less than timid compared to the book.
saying that my favorite scene was when they were comparing buisness cards, i think they got that one bang on.

and am i right in saying that in the film he only admits to killing less than 20 people? cos in the book i think i remember him killing people from an early age.

Dodge

rudie- wrote:

and am i right in saying that in the film he only admits to killing less than 20 people? cos in the book i think i remember him killing people from an early age.

I while since I saw it but I think he sayd "dozens of people"

Could be totally wrong!

I enjoyed the film. It was never going to be as graphic as the book but as a stand alone film, its excellent

EDIT: http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0144084/quotes

"I guess I've killed maybe 20 people, maybe 40"

Galvasean

Patrick Bateman wrote:

I just had to kill a LOT of people!

As many as you want to believe

Tchocky

Sad Professor wrote:

The problem isn't the lack of violence per se but that the director kinda zoomed in on the misogynistic element while ignoring the book's deeper layers.

What do you expect when they let a chick direct it :rolleyes:

Cormic

I also saw it when it first came out and was not really impressed.

Saw it last week and really enjoyed it. The business card scene was priceless.

Galvasean

Tchocky wrote:

What do you expect when they let a chick direct it :rolleyes:

It helped them avoid all those accusations of misogyny.. I didn't see any.. >_>

Nordie

leeroybrown wrote:

I've never actually watched the film as I've always felt that it would be a letdown compared to the book which ranks among my favorites. I'll have to watch it at some stage.

It's on tonight BBC 2 11.00

johnny_ultimate

just watched this straight through there (although missed the last fifteen minutes, lousy last bus) for the first time and really enjoyed it. Some great comic moments in there. Wouldnt hail it as a classic though, but certainly much better than your average serial killer pic.
Christian Bale deserves more kudos than I can give though. For this and everything else (especially Chris Nolan - possibly my favourite director / actor combo).

Ay Cee

Clairecluck wrote:

AAAAAAAAAaahhh, the scene in the book where he puts the blade into the homeless guys eye while his little dog looked on! was on the bus when i read that and nearly puked on the stranger beside me! It's an effin great book - and film:D

Are you John Doe from Se7en?! :eek:

qwertplaywert

saw it last night......ending was a bit effy but otherwise excellant movie.i pissed myself laughing at the paul allen kill scene
9/10

Average-Ro

I bought the DVD the same day it was being shown on RTE (not knowing this of course). I really liked it. Such a black comedy.

"i pissed myself laughing at the paul allen kill scene"

So did I, it was so funny.

"Is that a raincoat?"
"Yes it is Paul!!"