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American Psycho (May 7, 2000)

Plot

Patrick Bateman, a Harvard grad, "works" at his father's firm by day, and is a homicidal murderer by night.

My Interpretation

    Bateman is part of the severe upper echelon of 1980s America, and everything is given to him. He is an anal retentive megalomaniac and he fights to attain superiority over his friends and coworkers through material means. Since superiority can not be really be attained through material possessions, Bateman becomes a vessel of frustration and anger.
    Bateman's greater problem is that he has no control over his life. He is placed in the lap of luxury and everything is given to him. The very thing that he strives to show off (money), also takes away his freedom. All of his actions are inconsequential and there is nothing he can do that will have any effect on any aspect of his life or in this world. This only adds to his rage, and in order to release his inner rage and desire for control, Bateman turns to violence without understanding his carnal desire for blood and lives.

    The moral: Once you reach a certain level in the financial hierarchy, nothing, not even yourself, can remove you from what capitalistic society has deemed as what you want.

Overall Opinion

This movie is not worth watching. I left the theater feeling very unsatisfied. The plot was not realistic on any level, and the movie ends without a single change. The murder scenes were shocking at first, but it seemed tacky more than anything else after a while.
It seems like the director had tried much too hard in making the story more than what it is. As far as I'm concerned, the only good thing about this movie was the music, and Bateman's apartment that captured the 80s modern look perfectly.