American Psycho shocked audiences when it debuted in 2000 with its unflinching violence and amoral protagonist, Patrick Bateman, played to icy perfection by Christian Bale. While controversial for its graphic depictions of rape, torture, and murder, the film has earned a cult following and sparked ongoing analysis of its social critique of the 1980s yuppie culture and entitlement.
At surface level, American Psycho is about the exploits of handsome 26-year-old investment banker Patrick Bateman, who moonlights as a psychopathic killer. But the provocative film also serves as a scathing indictment of 1980s Wall Street excess and greed, the soulless pursuit of status symbols, and the identity crises of the urban professional class.
On the outside, Patrick Bateman seemingly has it all—he’s rich, attractive, and successful. He obsessively follows morning and evening beauty routines, draping his bathroom in expensive skin products and applying facial masks that promise youth and vitality. He leads a life envied by many, capable of getting reservations at elite restaurants and crisscrossing Manhattan in his elegant business suits.
But underneath the veneer of success festers Bateman’s blood-lust and desire for increasingly extreme thrills. Unbeknown to his colleagues and social circle, Bateman channels his unchecked consumerism into a grisly hobby: bringing prostitutes and the homeless to his upscale apartment, where he ritualistically tortures, rapes, and dismembers them.
In one of the film’s most gut-wrenching scenes, Bateman sports a clear raincoat over his impeccable suit as he repeatedly axes the corpse of one of his victims—a symbolic merging of his white-collar exterior and crazed killer interior. He goes about his work days analyzing business cards and fine-tuning dinner reservations while carrying out frightful abuse when not keeping up pretenses.
For Bateman, inflicting pain serves partly as an outlet for his ennui and lack of fulfillment from status attainment alone. He craves ever more novelty and stimulation as his material abundance still leaves him unfulfilled and identity-less. Like the sleek business cards he critiques with his colleagues, appearances, and prestige signifiers are everything. Watch now to see Christian Bale bring this complex character to life.
Beyond its shock value, American Psycho doubles as a cultural critique. Set primarily in 1987 New York City, the film calls out the unchecked ambition and consumerism of 1980s professional elites. Through Bateman and his social circle, we’re confronted with the extreme implications of a “greedy is good” mentality and the moral bankruptcy that accompanies the relentless pursuit of status.
Everyone in Bateman’s orbit seems similarly empty despite living the high life, preoccupied with comparing clothing brands and restaurant reservations yet unable to meaningfully connect. The rat race has reduced them to commodity and appearance-obsessed automatons, interchangeable in their homogeny. This biting social commentary still resonates today in an age marked by increasing social stratification and ever-more conspicuous consumption by the wealthy.
Ultimately, Patrick Bateman represents the nihilistic extremes born out of a hyper-competitive, consumerist system devoid of purpose and constraints on excess. His pathological tendencies are permitted to flourish thanks to his privileged world’s single-minded ambition, lack of collective social responsibility, and enabling of unhealthy appetites.
American Psycho reminds audiences of the need for ethical constraints in capitalist societies—without them, systems protect anti-social behavior, and people lose themselves to unchecked desires. Through the terrifying character of Patrick Bateman, it suggests that finding meaning requires more than just the accumulation of wealth and status symbols. Perhaps the scariest part is that he moves through high society completely undetected for who he really is, leaving viewers to wonder just how many other “Patrick Batemans” hide in plain sight.