debaserr

the premise is somewhat unique and the overall execution is sound. the characters save bale are forgettable and cliché. i don't believe a person like that would exist or get away with it for any length of time. but the action scenes and his whole routine with introducing a song and then getting down to the nitty-gritty is enjoyable in a guilty pleasure sort of way.

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TheCunningStunt

I don't think you understood the twist..

Astronomer

Yeah, I always interpreted the book and the film as the murders being the fantasies of a delusional psychotic... Whether any of the crimes depicted in the novel actually happened, or were simply fantasies, is deliberately left open. What do you guys all think?

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TheCunningStunt

Bateman was a nut that fantasised about going absolutely nuts and killing everyone. Repressed emotionally. Like when he tried to get money out and inserted the cat and then shot everyone he could find. Just complete fantasy, to suggest otherwise is ridiculous. Just like when he throws a chainsaw - fantasy. His appointment book with all them drawings on it, just idle thinking/fantasising. The ending confirms that it's fantasy.

debaserr

there is never a clear indication about whether or not the events really occurred. it is up to me and you. you assumed one way, others are entitled to their opinion.

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TheCunningStunt

The fact the guy who Jared Leto played wasn't actually dead because his lawyer had lunch with him? ATM machines asking him to feed a cat? Throwing chainsaws?

How can you not interpret that as fantasy?

bungalow

the ending is left deliberately ambiguous. if paul allen was on business in london (an alibi bateman fabricated), why at the end of the film is a real estate agent showing his apartment? why does the agent suspiciously ask bateman if he had read the advertisement for the apartment in the paper (there was no advert) and when bateman says yes, the agent tells him to leave and not make trouble?

TheCunningStunt

Hmm, I suppose. I didn't really think of it as being anything other than fantasy, it all just seemed surreal and dream like to me. Even though it's a possibility that they happened I still don't think so

I still haven't been able to work out that bit. Can anyone shed any light?

Bulldog

Brilliantly funny, tar-black satire. Basically, imagine American Psycho except with a documentary film crew following a much more affable and talkative Patrick Bateman around on his extra-curricular exploits and you're half-way there.

dankrsta

The bold part can be interpreted differently actually. Throughout the movie all these yuppies were mixing each other constantly, since they all dressed the same, had similar haircuts, lifestyles etc. Paul Allen himself mistaken Bateman for some guy Halberstram, so how can you be sure that the lawyer didn't mistake someone else for Paul Allen, especially when we see that he repeatedly called Bateman Davis. And that's the point. They were all looking at each other superficially, they were shells, stereotypes with no real persona underneath, just voids. It doesn't really matter how you interpret the murders, that's not the major theme of the movie.