American Psycho (2000)

During the excesses of the late eighties, with masses of money flowing daily through Wall Street, yuppie Wall Street banker Patrick Bateman is riding high on the crest of the money wave at his fathers firm in the mergers and acquisitions department. Placed in a high position by his father he doesn't have a clue, but hey, it pays well and he prides himself on his appearance.

However, his behind his pruned and manicured life hides a darker secret which only comes out after work and partying. At night he kills people in a crazed homicidal frenzy. He butchers tramps, prostitutes and even his work colleagues taking extreme care in not to mess his expensive suit or apartment.

As he becomes more and more obsessed with his brutal crimes paranoia sets in. Are his crimes real, or just imaginary? It is only then his emotions start to break through his hardened facade and he becomes more and more desperate for help. But in the gluttonous eighties, will anyone recognise his cries for help?

The picture is outstanding with some fabulous colour tones and detail. The dark and gloomy night time scenes along with the brightly lit interiors truly highlight the superiority of DVD. It has an above average bit-rate throughout the film with no signs of artifacting, outlining or picture noise.

The sound is equally impressive. Although it is a dialogue intensive film with little, or no, use of sub, the rear channels are kept reasonably busy with a mixture of music and ambient effects. The dialogue is clear and audible and there is certainly no need to keep correcting the volume levels. If you like your eighties music then you'll love the sound on this disc as Patrick plays Huey Lewis, Phil Collins in his apartment and visits nightclubs with New Order blasting out. Excellent stuff.

The extras are also worth while, even more so as it exceeds the region one edition. Although the American edition has a "Making of" featurette, the region two edition scores over the region one disc by having a number of deleted scenes and cast interviews. However, I have noticed that Entertainment in Video never tend to tell the real story about the extras. They completely missed listing the, albeit brief, "Killer Looks" featurette which I only noticed when accessing the extras menu.

The acting from Christian Bale is simply outstanding and I suspect that if the film hadn't been so damn right violent and gory, plenty of awards would have been flooding its way. If you like a gory thriller which gets you thinking then you'll love this disc.