Mary Harron directs Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe and Chloë Sevigny in this blackly satirical adaption of Bret Easton Ellis’ yuppie serial killer novel. 

Not a movie you can watch with mother. This amps up the underlying comedy (it has more laugh out loud moments than most pure genre pieces) and psychological paranoia of Ellis’ 80s masterpiece while only slightly toning down the violence – the pornographic sex, obscene consumption, “trendy” soundtrack and nihilist misogyny all pointedly remain. Disturbingly Bale has never quite inhabited a role ever so snugly again, his Patrick Bateman is a predatory fool struggling in a world of guileless idiots. While Dafoe’s cop sparkles… he might just be asking routine questions, might rightly suspect our vile antihero or might be a symptom of his own suppressed conscience… this supporting turn is an absolute hoot – each line delivery slamoning from a differing perspective to unnerve you and the protagonist expertly. A near perfect adaptation of an “unfilmable” (and often purposefully repulsive) modern classic, a forensic autopsy of the yuppie hedonism and sociopathic practice of the Reagan era.

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