I watched it for the first time and while the theme is completely correct that capitalists are soulless husks who can get away with anything, I don’t really understand the hype around it
The book is better. It goes a VERY long way to show that Bateman is a miserable loser who should not be idolised in the least and that was not really brought over to the movie.
I think the movie does a good job showing he’s a completely empty loser, but since it’s Christian Bale and many people in the US aspire to be exactly that kind of loser a lot of jackasses totally miss the message. The same thing happens with Starship Troopers, American History X, and a bunch of other movies.
Haven’t read the book but I know the film also doesn’t quite nail the ending either and has led to a fair amount of misinterpretation that the director has even lamented.
American Psycho is probably a good example of the weakness film has as a visual medium. Much like how “there’s no such thing as an anti war film” I think the nature of film in how it basically has to emphasize aesthetics and spectacle it can’t help but glorify and invite the audience to indulge in Bateman.
Whatever the intent…it’s hard to get over that Christian Bale looks like Christian Bale, has the body of an Adonis, wears expensive clothes, eats at lavish restaurants, etc.
I definitely disagree that there are antiwar films, though some psychopath would take them and still think a film like Come and See or the new All Quiet on the Western Front are “based”; those films are very effective at demonstrating the ridiculous and horrifying realities of war. There’s also films like Threads, which talk about the apocalypse of a nuclear war.
Also a shoutout to the user that recommended Generation: Kill which felt like the first real war series that I’ve been able to watch. Fuck Tom Hanks for making/producing The Pacific and Band of Brothers, lots of boring cutaway scenes and emotional manipulation to make you think that shooting surrendering people is good compared to whatever else happens in a war.
it’s funny :vivian-shrug:
Music fans when the song comes on
I think it’s more notorious than anything, and then it has a pushback over that which makes it get evaluated higher by people defending it as actually having good themes in showcasing wealthy businessmen as vapid, alienated, chauvinist lunatics who don’t actually work but live in luxury while destroying everyone around them. That just signal boosts it a bit more I think, like “oh no it’s not edgy trash it’s got a good point to it” sounds a lot more emphatic than “yeah it was a movie and it had some good points.”
I think that’s a general phenomenon too, where something that’s problematic but has redeeming qualities gets disproportionate attention because of people defending it as “actually good” which generally tends to result in exaggeration or at least more attention.
Its the best and most realistic depiction of how real wealthy people behave in a fictional film. The only other film that comes close is Knives Out. Edit: Also Sorry To Bother You
