American Psycho

American Psycho sets out to be both a satire of yuppie greed, 80's materialism and policy, while at the same time being a character study of a closet psychotic. Christian Bale plays a successful if slightly eccentric Wall Street broker by day and a man whose murderous impulses take him over at night. He realizes he's psychotic, and at time can't control it, but he fears he doesn't exist. Bale's performance at moments ventures on over the top, but mostly finds a remarkably strong note. Two scene in particular stick out in my mind: one in which a bunch of cocky broker compare business cards that only differ in the texture of the card (watch as Bale squirms as he knows he's being one-uped), and the scene in which Jared Leto gets the axe -- literally. Before he kills people, he has a tendancy to talk about the philosophical implication of various 80's rock songs. It's amusing. These are the kind of people whose worth is determined by what restaurants they can get a reservation at. It's too bitterly sarcastic to be effective satire, but as a black comedy and character study it succeeds with some amusing results.