American Psycho (2000, DVD)

A MUST OWN DVD if you consider yourself an edgy film buff. This is more of an opinion, rather than a review...I still can't believe that Leonardo DiCaprio turned down the leading role in 'American Psycho' to do the relative bomb 'The Beach' instead - I would've loved to have seen what he would have done in the lead role - but Christian Bale was more than up to the task...While 'American Psycho' is not for the squeamish or faint of heart, and was/is very controversial, it paints a complete picture of a corporate VP that has entirely lost his mind...if you watch it, and see the scene with Huey Lewis and the New's song 'Hip To Be Square', you won't have to wonder why the obviously square, but certainly not hip, Huey Lewis sued to keep his song off the soundtrack album/CD...but the scene, like many of the other scenes, manages to be outrageously brutal without ever really showing you any actual gore. This film will take you on a ride better than most films of the thriller and/or horror genres...and the casting was superb, with several excellent performances by great young actors, like Josh Lucas(starred in the recent 'Stealth' with Jamie Foxx) and Justin Theroux(played the Irish bad guy in the 2nd 'Charlie's Angels' flick) were superb as two of the young bored VP's, with the latter fixated on grams of coke like many in his position were in the 80's...and a younger and super cute Reese Witherspoon before she lost her pinchable baby-fat cheeks, as well as a younger cuter Chloe Sevigny, to name only a few...as well as an off-beat performance by relative old-timer Willem DaFoe as the somewhat quirky detective.
I highly recommend 'American Psycho' if you like good, cutting-edge, cinema...and if you are a stockholder in a big corporation you might be interested to see what many corporate VP's actually do on the job and what a tremendous waste of money many of them must be, as the way in which the young corporate VP's were portrayed in this film couldn't have been too far from reality in most cases - especially in the 1980's - in that many do nothing - and are highly paid for it - referring to a $570 dinner tab for four, in the 1980's mind you, as being 'reasonable'.....Altho' I recommend this fil highly, I would NOT recommend it for children of ANY age, or the mentally unstable..so don't let the weird neighbor boy borrow it...
Enjoy!