Showing posts with label American Psycho. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American Psycho. Show all posts

Sunday, November 7

Did Patrick Bateman ever actually kill anybody?

Short answer: No.
Long answer: Yes, but no.

The original message of the book is that the society is just a heap of manipulated and shallow tools. They only see what they want to see and refuse to believe that Bateman slaughtered all those people. That money and material goods were more important then human lives. But to be honest, he left it intentionally vague. Same thing in his interviews. The movie done goof with the lady at Paul Allen's apartment. That's the problem with the movie and why's it's confusing. I'd hate to be one of "those guys", but just read the book.

In the movie, I take it he didn't kill anyone besides the homeless man. The whole ending part the ATM scene, the cop car exploding, the walking through his apartment, Paul Allen actually being in London, leads me to believe the rest of the film was just figments of his imagination. The only person who says Paul Allen was in London was the asshole lawyer, and the movie went out of it's way to show how all of the businessmen were indistinguishable because they dressed, behaved, and spoke so similar to one another. If you're to believe that Paul Allen actually was in London, then what prompted William Dafoe's investigation? My interpretation is still that the lawyer mistook him for someone else, and most of the movie actually happened. Really, only the ATM, exploding cop car scene struck me as being imagined.

I felt like the lady at the apartment found all the corpses and what not, presumed the killer would never come back, and covered it up to keep the property value up to go along with the movie's message about greed or materialism etc. Like the lady was willing to cover up a great evil for the sake of protecting her assets. That's the only thing that makes sense, the way she recognized Bateman and said "you'd better leave" seems to indicate she knew he was fucked up. I think the thing with the guy seeing Paul Allen in London was just because all the corporate drones were so similar, he probably confused him with someone else. Pretty much that. But I felt in the movie she wasn't scared. Like she was just saying to leave because. In the book it's made out that she's scared when she sees him because she realizes who she is. The actress in the movie just doesn't seem to understand what her motivation is.

Some people say "what happened at night didn't happen", maybe thats true with the book but in the movie its clear the message is being so wrapped up in making profits and looking good is bad because people didn't take time to pay attention to the fact that Bateman was murdering all these people. The apartment lady covered up the murders because she would never be able to sell that apartment again and it would probably be torn down.