American Psycho is a very bizarre movie,a bizarre adaptation of a very controversial novel. The story follows Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), a rich Wall Street employee with a fiancée (they're both in affairs) and a nice apartment or two. He also has an addiction to murder. He is a serial killer. He is like James Bond, just as stylish and lucrative, but emotionless and evil. The movie picks up deep into his addiction, as its worsening. He is no longer able to control his desire to kill (although at least twice we see him back off) until one night when he finally snaps. But the movie is oddly funny-it's billed as 'satire'. Some of the funny moments happen at the darkest times, like the one very gruesome scene of the movie, where Bateman drops a chainsaw a couple of floors, landing it on the head of one poor prostitute. He laughs as he does it, and for some sick reason, so do we. The movie is squeamish and we don't want to laugh-but it's amusing. And you'll feel bad about it afterwards.
Christian Bale puts on a decent performance as the title psycho. Bale is easily one of my all-time least favorite actors, so I'm biased against him; big Bale fans will love him in this. Willem Dafoe puts on a decent performance to match Bale; he plays the same creepy old guy he always does (sidebar-his performance is not nearly as extraordinary as his Boondock Saints role). Jared Leto (you know him as Harry Goldfarb, or from the show My So-Called Life, or as the lead singer of the awesome band 30 Seconds to Mars) puts on a great,albeit short performance as a coworker of Bateman's. He's a bit of a douche, and Bateman takes care of that pretty quickly. Reese Witherspoon makes a few bland appearances as well. The best of the cast is the no-name, minor characters.
American Psycho is a thoroughly entertaining movie. It's different; it's unique. Unfortunately it is weighed down by some subpar performances and a completely confusing and unsatisfying conclusion. The wrap-up is very disappointing and frankly, brings down the whole movie. It's entertaining, and worth a watch, but it isn't making any of my best-of lists.