Some escort girls in an apartment uptown I killed Bethany, my old girlfriend with a nail gun Last week, I killed another girl with a chainsaw There was someone else there, I cannot remember, maybe a model — she's dead too! I guess I've killed maybe 20 people. Maybe 40! Perhaps the biggest sign that Bateman's kill count is on the lower end of his own personal spectrum, however, is the fact that there's no cops crawling down his neck.
While it's easier to imagine someone like Bateman getting away with murdering random homeless people, sex workers, or women he meets while walking home, it's highly unlikely he's remained off the NYPD's radar with upwards of 40 murders. Throughout the entirety of the movie, we see Christian Bale's character repeatedly called names other than Patrick Bateman by various individuals — leading some viewers to question whether or not he really even is Patrick Bateman.
However, there should be absolutely no doubt that he is truly who he says he is, and that any misidentifications by other characters are purely their own mistakes.
In fact, identities are mistaken constantly and in perpetuity. Bateman then steps in and says "It's not Paul Allen. Paul Allen is on the other side of the room over there. The first time we meet the real Paul Allen , he mistakes Bateman for Marcus Halberstram — a mistake he never corrects.
He also has a penchant for Valentino suits and Oliver People's glasses. Marcus and I even go to the same barber. The biggest mystery in the film revolves around whether or not Patrick Bateman actually killed Paul Allen.
And though we witness Bateman kill Paul Allen "with an axe in the face," and hear him claim that the body is "dissolving in a bathtub in Hell's kitchen," we're presented with some evidence to support that idea that Allen is actually alive and well The first piece of evidence is when, while having dinner with the private detective investigating Paul Allen's disappearance, Bateman is surprisingly given an alibi for the night of Allen's disappearance. The real Halberstram, unsurprisingly, claimed he was not having dinner with Allen.
Rather, he claimed he was having dinner with other colleagues While it's easy to conclude that Bateman forgot about this dinner, blacked out, or simply imagined killing Paul Allen, it's far more likely that Bateman was actually not at said dinner. Thus, it's extremely likely that the real Halberstram simply mistook a different colleague for Bateman — as did Paul Allen — thus providing Allen's murderer with one ultra lucky alibi.
Bateman's secretary Jean almost becomes his victim when he charms her into coming home with him. Jean is the only woman in the film that Patrick shows any level of regard for, but that's not saying much: His hankering to kill her is still strong enough to make him grab his nail gun and almost kill her.
However, after Patrick's mental breakdown at the ATM and subsequent murder spree, he tells his lawyer that he did kill one of his exes with a nail gun. He rambles, "I killed Bethany, my old girlfriend, with a nail gun. We never see her, nor is she mentioned previously. He could be talking about a real person from before the film's events, but it does seem like Bateman and Jean have a messy romantic history. Bateman could have easily invented an alternate version of Jean in his head and imagined killing her.
He calls her during one of his least lucid moments, so he definitely knows, on some level, that Jean is alive. But these contradictions offer more food for thought that Bateman has imagined all or some of his kills, as he doesn't have a habit of repeating murder weapons.
Whether he hallucinated the whole thing or developed an affinity for the nail gun is up to the audience. One of the most confusing moments in the film takes place when Bateman shockingly finds Paul Allen's apartment — previously full of dead bodies — spotlessly clean, and being shown to potential tenants.
But don't be fooled by this clever twist! The apartment really was full of dead bodies, and Paul Allen was definitely living there before he was murdered. With a lovely view of Central Park, Allen's apartment is known to be one of the most expensive properties in New York City. Thus, the owners understandably want to get someone living there and paying rent there as soon as possible. Rather than call the police upon discovering the closets full of bodies, which would devalue the property value, the owners quietly have the mess taken care of — hence why the apartment has been given more than just a new coat of paint.
The evidence comes when Bateman has a strange but serious interaction with the real estate agent — who instantly drops her facade when Bateman admits he is not her two o'clock appointment. Jean is clearly in love with Patrick, and while Patrick is incapable of love, he does end up sparing her life after coming very close to ending it with a nail gun. Bateman murders Allen with an ax in Allen's apartment and leaves the body there.
Later, he brings other victims to the apartment, killing them and leaving their bodies there as well. As the film progresses, Bateman becomes more and more unhinged, to the point where he calls his lawyer and confesses all his crimes. Realizing his blunder, Bateman decides to return to Allen's apartment and clean up the crime scene before it's too late. But a curious thing happens: the apartment is not the bloody mess that Bateman left it.
Instead, it's been cleaned to perfection — and it's currently for on the market. A relator is there, and she seems either afraid or angry at Bateman the movie keeps it deliberately unclear; the bottom line: she does not like Bateman and she seems to know more than she's letting on.
Bateman is confused, wondering what the hell happened to all the dead bodies he left in the apartment. Not long after this, Batemen runs into the lawyer he confessed to via phone.
He tries to explain himself, but as it turns out, the lawyer doesn't even recognize him. This is a running theme in both the movie and the book more so in the book : no one recognizes anyone. Everyone is so stupid and so coked-up that they're all living in a constant state of obliviousness. Was Paul Allen really dead?
We have tried to look at all the possibilities and decipher it for you and come up with the theories that make rational sense of the psychological thriller. Policemen Chase — Policemen chase Patrick in their cars which later turns into a shootout.
He, himself, is oddly surprised and stares at the gun in disbelief for a few seconds before checking the time and running into the office. Confession — Bateman enters his office cabin and hides from the helicopter search lights, under his desk.
He makes a call to his lawyer, Harold Stephen Bogaert , to confess his heinous act of brutally murdering the escort girls and one of his colleagues Paul Allen Jared Leto.
The dead bodies are no more there in the storage compartment of the flat. A realtor is initially shocked to see Bateman and explains that nobody named Paul Allen actually lived there. She politely asks him to leave the apartment. There is no doubt that Patrick Bateman is psychotic. Patrick Bateman is a self-obsessed, eccentric and affluent guy who works in a financial firm.
He and his colleagues lead such a superficial life that they show off their visiting cards to mark their vanity. The banking software commands our protagonist to feed it a stray cat. The lead character doesn't have much of a problem with this idea, and there just so happens to be a kitten nearby -- but before Bateman can shoot the animal and shove it in the cash dispenser, he gets interrupted.
Unfortunately, this interruption comes in the form of an understandably freaked out woman, who winds up becoming Bateman's first victim of the night. This killing doesn't go unnoticed, and immediately Bateman finds himself in first a chase, and then a shootout with the cops. Though he's armed with just a pistol, and is stuck in an open alley way, he is able to actually kill at least two police officers, and even blow up one of the squad cars.
This even strikes the titular character as odd, as he actually stares at his gun in disbelief. But this is only just the beginning of his psychotic and violent night. As he hides under his desk from helicopter search lights, Bateman makes a call to his lawyer, Harold Stephen Bogaert to make his confession. Sobbing and speaking to an answering machine, he admits to every monstrous act he's done -- some of which we've seen in the movie, some of which we haven't.
He says that he has killed anywhere between 20 and 40 people, including Paul Allen Jared Leto , and doesn't think he can get away with it anymore. He finishes the call telling his lawyer where he can meet him tomorrow.
It is after this point when everything we understood to be true in American Psycho begins to unravel. The body parts that Bateman has been storing in Paul Allen's apartment are gone, and a realtor explains that nobody named Paul Allen actually lived there.
Jean Chloe Sevigny finds a notebook that seem to be reflections of her boss' psychosis, and we are suddenly left to wonder if it's all just his fantasy. The real bombshell, though, is dropped as Bateman makes his way to the bar to meet with his lawyer. Like just about everyone else in the film, Harold begins by confusing Bateman for somebody else, and is fully convinced that the message he was left was just a prank - with the punchline being the idea of a dork like Patrick Bateman being a serial killer.
The crazy lead character tries to explain that his confession was real, but the lawyer refutes his claims about Paul Allen as an impossibility -- saying that he just saw Allen a few days before in London.
Bateman is left reeling from this revelation, questioning everything he believes that he has done, and processing his deep inner pain. There is little question that Patrick Bateman is an absolute lunatic, but the big question at the end of American Psycho is whether he is a serial killer, or just a sadist with extreme delusions and a vivid imagination.
It is our stance that Bateman does actually murder many people over the course of the movie, but there is one exception: he didn't actually kill Paul Allen. Really, this conclusion can be drawn just by taking all of the evidence the film presents at face value.
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