American Psycho
Rating: R
Director: Mary Harron
Starring: Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, Reese Witherspoon, Samantha Mathis, Jared Leto

I have this theory that Bill Gates is about to release a new operating system called "American Windows," and that he's paying Hollywood a million dollars every time they use the adjective "American" in a movie title. Then, when the public's good and primed, he'll copyright the word, release the software, and voila -- we'll all have to pay fifteen cents each time we call something "American" or run the risk of software piracy.

How else can one explain the run of the last year or so? Everything's coming up American. While I can see the national claim to the brand of pie, beauty, and movie that have taken the description, I have to draw the line at this one. There's only one American Psycho, and he starred in a little movie made by Alfred Hitchcock.

Now we have a Welsh actor (being directed by a Canadian) trying to redefine the archetype. According to "American Psycho," going crazy in this country has nothing to do with the Oedipus complex or being forced to run a motel. Going crazy is a rage against the faceless nihilism of corporate, brand-name, materialistic America.

And what better decade to represent all that's evil in America than the 80s? (Well, actually the 90s would have done just as well, and so would the 70s come to think of it, but as viewers we're forced to play along.) The titular menace is Patrick Bateman (Bale), a worthless hunk of vice-presidential human being who warms a leather office chair in Manhattan, working in mergers and acquisitions (or, as Bateman thinks of it, "murders and executions"). This poor baby is so hollow, so shallow, so non-existant, that he needs to brutally murder somebody just about every night to assert his humanity. Usually, these murders are performed on women, and there's a hint that he enjoys their taste as well.

This isn't a slasher flick, but it comes dangerously close. Harron references the genre (which came to power in 1978 and grew to the outlandish position it now occupies in the 80s), but keeps most of the bloody violence off-screen. Fear not, there is plenty of bloody violence off screen. During the course of the movie, Bateman slays a few dozen women, a homeless guy, the homeless guy's dog, a co-worker, some security guards, an old lady in a hat...oh, and he tries to shove a kitten into the deposit slot of an ATM. Whether these murders actually happen or not is left ambiguous, but most viewers will prefer to forego this "artistic" touch and allow the murders to be real.

Why? Well, because Bateman's so gosh darn happy committing them. Naked hallway chase scenes with a chainsaw aside, Bateman's bloodlust is less psychotic than therapeutic. He's so horribly bland and boring as a character that the murders become a relief. As sick as this sounds, the killings really do prove that Bateman is a human being. Bale plays the part with vacant egotism, and services the parts where Bateman cracks well...an American Actor might have overacted the hammier nutcase scenes. The rest of the cast pretty much stays out of the way, with the exception of Reese Witherspoon, who accidentally plays the part of Bateman's fiancee as pure charicature. I say accidentally because Witherspoon has always avoided this pitfall in her career (witness "Election" or "Freeway") even when faced with kookier characters, so let's just chalk this failure up to the law of averages and let her off the hook.

I will say this. "American Psycho" is a scream. You can take that to mean it's scary, which it is, particularly in its mysoginistic aspects and implications that money will get away with murder. Or you can take that to mean it's funny, which it is, especially in its pin-point skewering of 80s culture and the faceless mass of Wall Street mannequins. Or you can even take that to mean it's frustrating, which it is. This movie had all the potential to become an Oscar contender, or a cult hit, or a comedy classic, but in its artistic aspirations (i.e. the whole ambiguity thing) it saps its own energy, and ultimately becomes just as pointless as Bateman says it is in the closing monologue. B

Where the Money Is
Rating: PG-13
Director: Marek Kanievska
Starring: Paul Newman, Linda Fiorentino, Durmot Mulroney

Sometimes one character can be so poorly conceived and written that he or she can absolutely destroy a movie. That's the case here, and the character is played by Durmot Mulroney.

Allow me to explain. "Where the Money Is" wants to be a high-spirited crime caper. Good idea number one was hiring septegenarian Paul Newman to play the bank robber. After all, he became the world's most famous salad dressing maker by playing bank robbers, and he's still got undeniable star power, even at his advanced age. The blue eyes and nonchalant attitude light up the screen in a way that younger actors can only dream of. Good idea number two was hiring Linda Fiorentino to play the woman who pushes Newman's character back into a life of crime. Fiorentino has this whole sexy, assertive woman thing down pat, and she single-handedly made "Dogma" watchable, so she deserves a plum role like this one.

Good idea number three was the basic plot. Carol Ann McKay (Fiorentino) is a nurse at a retirement home/rehabilitation facility. She's also a former prom queen and has a powerful party streak that often leads her to do things outside the box, so to speak. Henry Manning (Newman) is a life-long bank robber who was finally caught when a power outage in Denver (go figure) foiled one of his heists. While in prison, he has a wee seizure and becomes a total vegetable. A bed shortage brings him out of the prison system and into McKay's little backwoods nursing home.

A series of events leads the perceptive McKay to suspect Manning's faking the stroke. She tries various methods to arouse him, including a lap dance, but he won't budge. Not until she dumps him into a river, that is. Turns out Manning was faking it, and is in perfect health after all. (What, you thought they'd pay Newman just to sit there?) With understandable fury, he demands, "What do you want?"

She wants to rob a bank. Since Manning's contacts on the outside have fallen through and he has no way of getting to his loot from the glory days, he agrees to help. Sounds like a great crime caper, right?

Wrong. McKay's married. To a dude named Wayne (Mulroney). He was the prom king, and they've been together ever since high school. He serves no purpose in this plot, but the screenwriters try their damndest to make him fit. First they make him McKay's protector, the guy who always steps in to get her out of trouble. Well, we're here to watch a movie about McKay getting into trouble, so that's just annoying. Then he becomes the jealous husband. This is even more stupid, since even Hollywood couldn't bear to make a love story out of Fiorentino and Newman. He's such a grandfatherly figure to her that Wayne's jealousy is only a head-scratcher. What's he afraid of? It's not like he's married to Catherine Zeta-Jones.

He gets roped into the crime, and becomes the chaperone. Even worse than that: Remember when you went to your first junior high dance, and you were excited to maybe get a kiss from that certain someone, only to find out that your dad was going to be a chaperone? Wayne is dad. He's the wet noodle, the sponge that soaks up all the energy, the guy from accounting who can't tell a joke, the face that magically makes you go limp while you're making out. He just plain sucks.

With Wayne around to cause "conflict" the movie makers decided that they didn't need to make the actual crime very difficult, so the heist goes off with nary a hitch. Newman doesn't even break a sweat, and Fiorentino acts more like a pro than a rookie. This is just plain wrong. In a crime caper movie, the conflict should come out of the criminals trying to get away with it, not with Bonnie and Clyde trying to ditch the loser mooch in the back seat.

See this movie only if you have a mortal fear of Paul Newman croaking before he can make another movie. Otherwise, the money's elsewhere. C+

Jet Li has just had his first big hit in the US with "Romeo Must Die," but he was made a star in Hong Kong, where he has been making martial arts films for the last decade. Li is known for playing various infallibly heroic characters like the folk hero Wong Fei Hong, but in "Fist of Legend," recently released on domestic tape by Dimension Home Video, Li takes on his most iconic character yet by playing a role originated by Bruce Lee.

"Fist of Legend" is a loose remake of one of Lee's most popular Chinese films, "The Chinese Connection." Actually, the plot is almost exactly the same, it's the details and themes that differ greatly. Chen Zhen (Jet Li) is a Chinese student studying at a Japanese university in Kyoto. The year is 1937, when Japan's Imperial forces were occupying part of Northern China. Chen gets word that his adoptive father, master of the Jing Wu martial arts school in Shanghai, has been killed in one-on-one combat with the head of a Japanese karate school. Chen leaves Japan (and his Japanese girlfriend Mitsuko, played by Shinobu Nakayama) behind, and makes his way back to Jing Wu. There Chen becomes embroiled not only in the matter of his master's murder, but also the power struggles within the school and the politics of the Japanese occupation.

Where "Fist of Legend" shines is in the many martial arts sequences. Though the movie was directed by Gordon Chan, Yuen Woo Ping ("Wing Chun," "The Matrix") directed the martial arts sequences. Woo Ping is known for his heavy use of wire work, which in films like "Tai Chi Master" and "Once Upon a Time in China II" sent Jet Li sailing through the air in a fashion that began to impinge on Superman's schtick.

Here Woo Ping keeps things a bit more realistic, using the wires only to enhance the abilities of the performers. The final fight, where the somewhat diminutive Li fights the tall and powerful Chow, is probably the peak of Woo Ping's art. In addition, this fight ends with a rather clever homage to Bruce Lee's famous hand vs. sword fight from the original film, except that Chen Zhen uses his belt against Fujita's sword. How Chen's pants stay up after he has removed his belt is not entirely clear.

Viewers who thought Jet lacked chemistry with Aaliyah in "Romeo Must Die" will find little different in "Fist of Legend." Despite the fact that they're supposed to be in love, and even move in together, Chen and Mitsuko only share a single uncomfortable hug. Otherwise, Li is his usual self: reserved, but subtly humorous and always a treat to watch in action. A