Jonathan Hus week 8 - Psychotic Sensation

    Eitan Elisha and I have recently set a goal of watching one highly-rated movie per week. The next few movies we have planned to watch are Whiplash, Fight Club, Ford Vs Ferarri, and a few others. This weekend, however, we watched American Psycho. This film follows the corporate life of Patrick Bateman. Bateman is a Wallstreet businessman who only cares about money, women, and popularity. While the movie has many themes and ideas such as the shallow and vicious aspects of capitalism, I am mainly just going to give a synopsis to encourage you guys to watch this movie if you have not already. Patrick Bateman is a businessman by day and serial killer by night, whose urge to kill and bloodlust grows throughout the movie. Bateman, who hates most of his acquaintances, becomes especially angered by Paul Allen. During the “Card Scene”, where Bateman and his coworkers are flaunting their business cards, he becomes envious of Allen’s perfect business card. This little altercation leads Bateman to set up Allen and murder him. After this, Bateman begins to spiral out of control and kill more and more people each day. While embracing his hedonistic fantasies, Bateman causes more havoc and bloodshed. All the while this is happening, A detective named Donald Kimball sets out to investigate the disappearance of Allen. An interesting aspect is the dramatic Irony presented between the audience and Bateman whenever the Detective shows up. As the audience, we know that the Detective is onto him however Bateman has no idea. Ultimately, Bateman goes on to kill some prostitutes and even strangers. By the end of the film, the audience is left very confused as we learn that while Bateman left a voice message to his lawyer, admitting to his crimes, his lawyer takes it as a joke and tells Bateman that it's not possible Allen is dead because he had dinner with him a few days ago in London. This leaves the audience wondering if anything in the movie ever even happened. With a bit of research, I found a good answer. The way others interpret the ending is that due to the corporate selfishness of all the characters, they are all too self-absorbed to even remember who they talked to the day before, thus relating the idea that Bateman did kill Allen, however, no one even realizes because everyone is too self-absorbed with their own lives and in becoming wealthy. This movie was a solid 9.1 out of 10 for me. Let me know what movie Eitan and I should watch next!