On rewatch, the movie was quite a bit worse than I remembered. And by worse, I don't mean quality wise; I still loved it. By worse, I mean this movie is probably not allowed to be shown in a school, even with a permission slip. It's rated R, of course, but it might earn that rating more than any movie I've ever seen up to this point. Honestly, it's to the degree that if I wasn't so far into the review before actually rewatching the movie, I would have chosen to talk about the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy, or another movie that fits this bill for me.

American Psycho stars Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman, a rich investor from New York City. He dislikes most of the people around him, such as his coworkers and even his fiancée, Evelyn Williams (Reese Witherspoon), whom he is cheating on with the fiancée of one of his coworkers (Samantha Mathis). The people around him generally view Bateman as a bit of a loser, and think nothing of him. Contrary to the fact that he reveals to the audience early on that he is actually a murderer by night.

The movie's plot focuses on a single one of Bateman's murders, caused by his intense jealousy of the person in question. This isn't the only person he kills in the movie, but is the one that has the most impact. People begin to question him about the person's disappearance, and Bateman attempts to cover up what happened as best as he can.

American Psycho's story could be used in a serious drama film, and some people might even view this movie as such. This hearkens back to my point about different people appreciating the same movie for different reasons. I'm sure many people think of American Psycho as a great drama, whereas I see it as one of the best black comedy films of all time.

I find this movie hilarious, but I feel like you need a partially-warped sense of humor to find about half of the jokes I like funny. A lot of the humor comes from the psychotic ways Bateman acts and thinks, due to its absurdity. In addition to that, I just find the way characters say things to be funny.  One of the funniest parts of the movie for me is when he decides to kill one of his coworkers, Luis Carruthers, and follows him into the bathroom of the resturaunt they are currently dining at. Bateman is about to put his arms around Carruthers' neck to strangle him, but Carruthers, revealed to be a closet homosexual, completely misinterprets this as Bateman making an advance on him. As Carruthers reveals all this to Bateman, he just stares at Carruthers with a deadpan expression on his face, and while he is talking, Bateman washes his hands (with his gloves on), then leaves the bathroom and restaurant as quickly as possible.

Bateman himself is probably my favorite part of the movie. My favorite type of character in fiction might be the self-obsessed egomaniac who is generally hated by the people around them. I just find the complete narcissism and detachment from reality shown by these characters to be hilarious, provided that they are either treated as a joke or are punished for their actions. I love these characters so much I make sure to include at least one that fits the archetype in every game or story I create. Bateman fits this description very well, and is the main source of the film's humor.

My go-to scene to show people how funny this movie can be is the famous "business card scene", in which Bateman and several of his coworkers are sitting around a table showing each other their new business cards. In his head, he obsesses over the tiniest of details such as the specific shade of white, font used, and lettering style. The scene ends with Bateman being shocked by the quality of the business card of Paul Allen (Jared Leto). He thinks, "Oh my God...it even has a watermark," as he drops it, which is one of my favorite lines in the movie.

So many of my favorite movie one-liners come from American Psycho, including Bateman's reply to a waiter asking if he wants to hear the restraunt's specials: "Not if you want to keep your spleen." Each time I watch a comedy movie, there's a different specific joke or line I fixate on each time, and in this viewing, it was, "My need to engage in homicidal behavior on a massive scale cannot be corrected but I have no other way to fulfill my needs." There's Bateman's response to anytime he wants to exit a situation without revealing what he's doing, "I have to return some videotapes", which a friend of mine actually said to me multiple times before I watched the movie. And of course, there's the first line of the best scene in the movie, "You like Huey Lewis and the News?"

American Psycho is violent and gory, but not excessively so. All of the deaths in the movie are off-camera when they occur. If this was the thing keeping you from watching the movie, it really shouldn't be. There is blood shown sometimes, but in many cases the situations are so ridiculous that you're almost laughing through them.  I'd like to quote Reddit user Quilpo on a thread questioning whether American Psycho was a comedy movie or not, since their comment was one of the best worded takes on the film I've ever seen: "I don't think you're supposed to be terrified, you're supposed to think it's ridiculous...you get 5 minutes of pontification on pop music for every 5 seconds of actually [sic] blood." Honestly, despite the title, the swearing and nudity is far more contibuting to the film's R rating than the violence. 

There are several things I want to talk about that does spoil the plot of the movie. However, I don't feel like knowing these things will ruin the film for anyone, especially since I knew most of them going in. Still, if you haven't seen the movie before, read the rest of this section at your own risk.

All of the instances of Bateman murdering someone in the movie are either for no reason, or for incredibly minute things, such as mildly annoying him. Carruthers, for example, he wanted to kill because he was jealous of his business card. Immediately after, Allen shows his impressive business card, Bateman finds a homeless person in an alleyway, and offers to help him get a job. Only a few seconds later, he begins insulting the man and eventually stabs him.

My favorite part of the whole movie is the scene where Bateman murders Allen. It is the perfect combination of American Psycho's humor, absurdity, and character writing, and the scene that got me to watch the movie in the first place. To start, the reason why Bateman decided to kill Allen in the first place was a combination of the business card and the fact he was able to get a reservation at the restaurant Dorsia, which Bateman could not get into. Bateman gets Allen drunk, brings him to his apartment, and kills him with an axe. What makes the scene so great is that while Bateman is taking precautions for the murder, such as putting newspapers all around Allen and putting on a raincoat, he is playing the song "Hip to be Square" by Huey Lewis and the News, for the purpose of covering the noise. If the juxtaposition of a pop song being played over a murder scene wasn't funny enough, for the entire time Bateman is prepping up until he is holding the axe over Allen, he is talking about how he enjoys the band and going over the history and meaning of the song currently playing. Immediately before killing Allen, he is still rambling about this, saying, "[it's] a song so catchy most people probably don't listen to the lyrics, but they should, because it's not just about the pleasures of conformity, and the importance of trends, but also a personal statement about the band itself."

The second-to-last part of the movie involves Bateman running from the police in a hilarious chase scene, and at one point, he shoots a police car with an ordinary handgun, which causes a huge explosion. This heavily implies that the events of the movie are exaggerated to some degree, which helps to explain how good Bateman is at getting away with these crimes. At the end of this chase, he calls his lawyer and frantically admits all of what he did. Soon after, he visits what he believes to be the apartment of Paul Allen, only to see it is covered in tarps and being sold. One of the people there assures him it never belonged to Allen.

The movie ends with Bateman confronting his lawyer, Harold Carnes (Stephen Bogaert), in a restaurant with his colleagues. Carnes takes the call as a joke, even mistaking Bateman for someone referred to as "Davis". Bateman assures Carnes he is telling the truth, but the latter dismisses it saying he had lunch with Allen after Bateman claimed to have killed him. This interaction leaves Bateman in a state of shock over whether or not his actions actually occured or not, and knowing that even if they did, he is free from the consequences of them.