American Psycho (Uncut)
I heard one person call American Psycho (2000) a good, but
pointless misanthropic dark satire, which I thought just about sums up the film
quite well. The film appeals or at least
tries to appeal to those who want to analyze and overanalyze the film as this
great comment on some sort of social or political venture, but what ends up
happening is the film becomes lost within its own created world and falls far
short of becoming a film that went far over the head of this film and is the
true American classic…Hitchcock’s Psycho. That film also addressed its time period, but
this film does not come close, despite the pop culture references.
Even a general comparison
of the two films becomes a pointless journey going down a one-way street with
traffic coming straight at you. We are
left with few places to go. Now, American Psycho does have some
highlights mostly with its cast and its ability to intrigue simple minds, but
the problem is that its focus is far too shifty for today’s average
moviegoer. However, someone felt it
important enough to actually make a sequel to this. Perhaps that was due to the cult following
this film received on home video/DVD.
Lions Gate has issued the film
taking over the distribution from Universal, but keeping true to the standard
by keeping the film with its 2.35 X 1 widescreen transfer and 5.1 Dolby Digital
mix. The picture is semi-soft and detail
can be a problem. This could be due to
the fact that the film was released onto DVD during its infant stages and never
fully received a good transfer and this DVD is a recycling of that. Also the fact that this film is not a
big-budget film, shot with a rather toned down color palette with a washed out
look, does not help. These two factors
alone limit the overall capabilities with this DVD. This of course is being slightly picky and
the film still looks good enough until a High-Definition transfer comes about.
There is a brief behind
the scenes included making this a not-so-special edition. The biggest bottom line is still the fact
that there is a fine line between trashy art and art that is trash. Are you able to tell the difference?
When the film was
originally optioned, Leonardo DiCaprio was offered a record $25 Million to take
the part, but he turned it down. The
role went instead to Christian Bale, who saw his career revived slowly, after
finding it a problem to make the transition from the child star of Steven
Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun (1987). After this film, he had an unfortunate turn
in the very unfortunate Shaft
revival, then Bale showed up in films like Equilibrium
(2002). Now, he will be the next
live-action Batman. Not bad.
The only other point is
book versus film. The book had passages
about the 1980s that went on and on and on and on to show how the character
(and the country) was drowning in mediocrity.
The film chooses to be too smug and silly, instead of making more of the
book’s points. Director Mary Herron had
the same problems with her indie film I
Shot Andy Warhol (1996), and while Bale recovered, she never did.
- Nate Goss
