Christian bale stars as patrick bateman in the controversial adaptation of the bret easton ellis literary classic. With reese witherspoon. Bret easton ellis's dark and violent satire of america in the 1980s is brought to the screen in this unsettling drama with blackly comic overtones. Patrick bateman, the son of a wealthy wall street financier, is pursuing his own lucrative career with his father's firm. Bateman is the prototypical yuppie, obsessed with success, fashion, and style. He is also a serial killer who murders, rapes, and mutilates both strangers and acquaintances without provocation or reason. Donald kimble willem dafoe, a police detective, questions bateman about the disappearance of paul allen jared leto, whom patrick murdered several days earlier. As kimble stays on bateman's trail, bateman's mask of studied, distant cool begins to fall apart.co starring reese witherspoon as bateman's girlfriend, samantha mathis, chloe sevigny, and guinevere turner.