“‘American Psycho’ is a mess. That’s not because of all that sloppy, sloshy blood, but because of its terminally undecided tone. And it’s not the kind of mess you wallow in, hooting at the glorious chaos of it all. Its conflicts of intention cancel one another out, leaving you numb...Mr. Walker, who oozed charisma in ‘Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson,’ holds the show together, for sure...Mostly, though, this psycho is neither scary nor sexy, nor is the show in which he appears.”
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"Rupert Goold’s production looks terrific...Fans of Bret Easton Ellis’s gruesome 1991 novel, and especially of Mary Harron’s less explicit 2000 film version, will scream with delighted recognition, and there are sharp performances...Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s adaptation emphasizes (perforce) humor over gore and tries to hint at a sensitive soul behind Patrick’s sleek facade. But numbness sets in...Neither the violence nor the satire can cut very deep when its targets are so thin."
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“Only the point of the show is invisible. Everything else is on vulgar display...What could the musical’s director and authors have thought they were bringing to the musical form by applying it to this material or to this material by squeezing it so sloppily into the tube of the musical form?...The combination of vague rhymes and noodly structures makes for songs with no profile and thus no weight in the storytelling...Bateman’s a bore.”
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“Slick, sleek and empty, a one-joke show that drowns its message, such as it is, in red sauce and fake emotion...Mr. Walker plays Bateman as a ripped hipster, which is just right...Some of Mr. Sheik’s songs are quite harmonically fresh...You’ll find its wit elephantine and its lapses into sentiment hypocritical. The only good thing to be said for the show is that the onstage bloodshed has been self-consciously reduced to a highly stylized minimum.”
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“There may be a hipster audience for this, but I wasn’t buying it...Moreover, Aguirre-Sacasa and director Goold (and possibly Walker as well) have conspired to defang Patrick somewhat, embellishing his back story and the possibility of redemption. The sum of these effects is to create a celebration of vapidity and inhumanity that is itself vapid and inhuman. Didn’t do much for me.”
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“With its wicked wit, catchy ear candy and sexy cast, 'American Psycho' gives you a killer buzz—for a while...Director Rupert Goold’s staging boasts signature flash and style...The pace and interest slacken in the second act, when Bateman goes on a killing tear. The rampage generates as much terror as Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. Minus a keen sense of danger, the show’s point is blunted...Through it all, handsome, hardbodied Walker hits all the right notes, seemingly without effort.”
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"There’s no heart but lots of blood in Duncan Sheik and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s witty musical treatment of the scandalous novel...Director Goold serves up the greedy ’80s vibe with knife-edge tech design and razor-sharp musical choices…The staging is consistently stylish, and the well-drilled ensemble work is consistently impressive. Nevertheless, the second act is disappointing. The humor is less manic, the songs less cutting, and, more critically, the violence is not violent enough."
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“Is it a first-rate musical? Not quite...But the show is a very sharp, distinctly theatrical treatment of its source material, in many ways improving on Mary Harron's movie version from 2000...Walker is charismatic and commanding, but it's the broken, corrosively conflicted aspects of his characterization that make the performance so hypnotic...Even with its flaws, the musical is a bloody good time.”
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