I watched this last night for the first time. I had read good things about this film and enjoyed the book a while back so I thought I was in for a pleasant cinematic experience. Meh... what a turd... So I figured, surely I can't be the only one who hated this! There must be some closet American Psycho haters out there wishing to come out! So identify yourselves.

Now as to why I hated it:

It's a satire of the 80's! Ok, so Wall Street guys were moslty narcisistic, selfish, egocentric whiners who thought they were hip and cultured, but were really rich, shallow, coke-snorting losers. Yeah I got that after 10 minutes. And then one of them goes nuts and starts killing people while mostly doing a bad Jim Carrey impersonation. Hummm ok. So it's supposed to be campy? sorry, not campy enough. Or maybe it's supposed to be gory and horrific? Sorry, not gory enough. But it's supposed to be all of these things, and the kicker is some of it is all in his head! Sorry, the mixing of genres failed miserably. All in his head? yeah I got that, how novel... Not to mention that all the scenes with the cop were useless, Bateman would never have picked up an ugly blond hooker, and you knew darn well he woudn't kill Jean even if you hadn't read the book (saved by the phone! how original). At one point, I wanted it too be so bad and goofy it would at least fall into the "it's so bad it's hilarious" category, but nope, it was just mostly ridiculous and a waste of time. Even that philosophising about Huey Lewis and Witney Houston tunes fell flat. Now I need to go and watch Mike Leigh's "Naked" to hear an intelligent loser ranting and cleanse myself. Blah...

And before people say that I had high expectations because of the book, I hadn't. I'd read it ages ago and only vaguely remembered it.

I did not like it at all either...you are not alone!

I liked it quite a bit, the the book was much better.

But I though they did a good job since it's one of those books that's tough to adapt in to a movie.

count me in.

I guess it was trying to make a point about how bad the evil greedy 80's were. Since I inherently disagree with that concept, the movie would have had to do a very good job at it--it didn't. I agree that there was a certain level of 'fake' ness, but hey, not much different from today.
And you make a good point--it didn't do well enough at being whatever it wanted to be, to do it.
Looking back, I can see one good thing in it: I thought I didn't like Christian Bale, but in actuality, I didn't like this movie. I can see how the 'two faces' and 'shifting persona for different situations' that Bale did quite well, even though he had crappy material to work with, would do very well in Batman Begins, so I now looking forward to that.

Never read the book, was going to after seeing the movie, but then thought, "if it's 3x as good as the movie, it'll still suck." Never did.

I thought it was good. I agree that it tried to be a campy psychological drama and I liked it for that reason. I guess it tried to make a point about how bad the 80's were but being a 90's child I didn't disagree with the point it was making, nor did I agree with it, I just took it all in stride.

I agree with you on most, and will add it just tried to hard, I think it was comparable to a laugh track. I get it, you do not have to beat me over the head with it.

Is it thread crapping if I say I dug it?

All the OP said except another possibility that they were all so similar the guy couldn't tell them apart. Dunno. Just worked for me.

I was actually looking for this movie at Best Buy yesterday and they didn't have it. Damn.

I was unimpressed when I watched it. I was really surprised to see how many people were ordering it in the DDD sale. Ah well, to each his/her own.

Exactly!


------------

I loved it. But I can see how many would not based on some of the opinions shared.

Pfiewww, glad I'm not alone. I sort of dissed Bale above, but there are some parts where he was very good. When he's with the bum in the alley comes to mind. I also give kudos to the production design for the rendering of the 80's atmosphere. I assume that film had a relatively small budget and it was put to good use in that department. And a lot of stuff I read had people state they were so happy that DiCaprio didn't get the role. Considering how he portrayed Howard Hugues (granted another type of lunatic obsessive behavior) I think it would have been interesting to see how it would have turned out.

my girlfriend hated it for many of the rsame reasons the OP expressed. i've never seen it.

Fan-fucking-tastic movie. It might because I have a passion for violence in films but I absolutely loved American Psycho. The guy kills and fucks at the same time and then gets away with it all. Awesome!

Watch it again. No, really.

Blah, I can watch Visitor Q and see a guy kill a woman, have sex with the corpse, get "stuck", and then have his wife help him to get "unstuck". See, that's disgusting, bizarre and hilarious at the same time, something American Psycho never even comes close to achieve.

I liked it, but never read the book. I really should some day.

Yeah but that's disgusting. American Psycho is purely a male domination movie, degrading and killing women, living a high roller lifestyle, and no consequences for any of it. The movie is no masterpiece but I remember when I watched it for the first time I was so blown away I went right back to the main menu and watched it again.

I have quite a fondness for this film actually.

I think you guys really need to ignore the whole 80s satire aspect. As far as I'm concerned it has no affect on the quality of the film. It is utterly ignorable, and would be best to do so.

I just view it as a very funny film, about a pyscho. I mean come one, his voice and the way he does and says things. It's just funny. It's just such a great character. I swear it's better everytime I watch it.

I had viewed it and thought it was an OK movie. Nothing spectacular. It was a blind buy for $8.50 (the DVDtalker peer pressure). It was skipping at Chapter 19. I have a red mark on the disc thinking it was a qimick. A little blood spat, but this could be why it was skipping in Chapter 19.

My other Blind Buys that I have viewed (Enemy at the Gates and Bus 174) I enjoyed.
Waiting to view my other blind Buys!

I liked it.
I think that I had a different view on it though, as I had already read the book.

Yup, very much my reaction. I use this movies as one of my litmus tests for people & their taste. Bale's performance is one of my all-time favorite movie roles & if one doesn't like this film, then I just can't talk movies with them.

To me a funny film about a psycho is Man Bites Dog. I also found the scene I quoted from Visitor Q hilarious and PopcornTreeCt feels it was just disgusting. I need way over the top, absurd, dark humor to find stuff like this funny. I found neither the dialogue nor the character in American Psycho funny.

I watched this movie for the first time last night, also, except I had the exact opposite reaction.

This movie was HILARIOUS. I thought Bateman's rants on Huey Lewis and Phil Collins and Whitney Houston were genuinely amusing, as well as his mannerisms and reactions to almost everything, especially who has the better card. In my opinion, Christian Bale played that part perfectly.

Plus, it had violence and nudity! Not to say that those make a film good, but it did make it BETTER.

And as for the ending, was it all in his head? It seemed to me that it was sort-of left open. Sure, his lawyer could've seen Paul Allen in England, but since everyone is always thinking that someone is someone else, he might not have. As for the walking into the apartment and finding no dead bodies, I think BizRodian in this thread had a nice suggestion: "In the case of the realitor, she was so money motivated, she got rid of the body, knowing she could never sell the place if it was a murder scene."

I don't know, but I still loved the movie.

I liked it.I found it to be a very amusing movie.