I'm finally writing a review of something I've already written a review of. I mean Lecter -movies don't count, since I did one whole fucking review of all three, so yeah.
American Psycho is based on a novel by Bret Easton Ellis. I've read the book two times, I've never finished the book. First time I read like one third of the book. The second time I had like 50 pages left when I gave up. Maybe I should read it again after I finish Hannibal Rising. Maybe third time's the charm. Anyway, American Psycho is about young, successful and handsome Patrick Bateman, who dates beautiful women, hangs out in expensive restaurants and wears stylish suits. And since all of us need stress release sometimes, Patrick Bateman kills people. So yeah.
What did I wrote the last time? Well, nothing much. Damn it, why did I used to write like 3 paragraph reviews? What was wrong with me?
Usually I prefer serial killers who aren't insane, who seem completely rational, like Dr Lecter. But, Patrick Bateman is different. He's insane, but when we really think about it - after reading or seeing the whole thing - it only seems natural. He's not the kind of insane like "Let's not give him a real motive or anything, he could just be insane!" The whole fucking reason is that he's really bonkers. And basically... even though he is a serial killer character, he isn't a villain of the story. Obviously not, he's the main character. You wouldn't call him the hero exactly, but not the villain. He's the kind of character that's in the story where you can't really tell clearly, who is good, who is bad, which is basically... any other story than some fantasy adventure, detective story etcetera, etcetera.
Okay, that was a lot of rambling so, I'll put it shortly: in this story, there is no good or bad, and even if Patrick Bateman is "a bad" character, being a murderer and all, you can't really call him the villain. And even though I prefer completely sane villains, I really like Patrick Bateman's character. That's it. (Yes, I could delete that last paragraph because of the rambling, but I won't, because someone might like that more than this shorter paragraph about the same thing.)
All the characters in the story are pretty much annoying, but still you kind of love it. I mean every guy is a misogynist piece of rat shit, every fucking person is a vain little snob and all that. But that's somehow so very natural for the characters. That works. They talk about the clothing, they look at almost identical looking business cards and are so upset when someone else's card looks better than theirs. They are more vain about their looks than the average viewer is. It seems almost ridiculous. All the white men in suits look the same, the characters can't tell each other apart. It's great. And especially that last bit - they can't tell each other apart, so I guess it's not important if we don't recognise which character is which. Maybe we recognise the name, but that's it. And I don't know, which ones of those characters are actually so important we need to care?
Like I talked about American Psycho 2, when Rachael's inner monologue is like from a stupid teen comedy, also Patrick Bateman's inner monologue is kind of... well, it says a lot about the character. He's childless and petty, talks way too much about what he does in the morning and also about the music. (That's not the inner monologue, though. He actually talks about it.) But then again he also considers a lot about his "pain" his "insanity", he thinks about stuff that well, sane and normal people probably wouldn't. And usually in movies the character's aren't aware of their mental illness so much, but Patrick Bateman seems to be aware. Well, not completely, but more than you'd think. So he's inner monologue tells much more than even his actions do, and it's kinda weird. Usually you see more when you just look at their actions - because that's what mostly counts, right? But Bateman's character... everything counts. What he does - both spending nights in expensive restaurants and murdering - but also what he thinks.
I don't know. I think I should watch American Psycho more often. Or at least read it again, you know, maybe finish this time.
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
7 / 10
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