Knocking-kneed adaptation of the "controversial" novel by Bret Easton Ellis. Director and co-scriptwriter Mary Harron, keeping the story in the Reagan era (mobile phones as big as shoes), or in other words keeping it daintily at arm's length, wants to be double-sure that you know it's a satire -- as much concerned with nouvelle cuisine (swordfish meatloaf, squid ravioli, and the like), personal-care products, designer clothing labels, pop music, etc., as with serial murder and mutilation. The resemblance to a satire is most striking during the centerpiece scene in which the Wall Street yuppies compare business cards (a civilized version of a pissing contest); and the mistaken-identity gambit whereby one co-worker can't tell another co-worker from yet another co-worker is pointedly funny. But the put-on style of delivery of Christian Bale as the hollow shallow materialistic hero, and the self-throat-cutting style of his written dialogue and narration ("I'm trying to listen to the new Robert Palmer tape, but Evelyn, my supposed fiancée, keeps buzzing in my ear"), more closely resemble a sledgehammer. (Chloë Sevigny, acting like a human being as the hero's demure secretary, seems to be acting in a separate movie.) Just to be on the safe side, the violence on screen is directed much more against men than against women. And in case all else fails, the movie equips itself with an escape hatch by leaving you in some confusion at the end of it as to how much of what you have seen actually took place. No question that the hero is crazy. The only question is how crazy. Well, one other question: Who cares? With Reese Witherspoon, Samantha Mathis, Jared Leto, Willem Dafoe. (2000) — Duncan Shepherd
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