[Doc Faustus]

If a blatant psychotic plays Bateman (or Batman, which he failed just as much), then you lose the impact of the character, which, by the way, is my main qualm about Jack Nicholson's Jack Torrance. These are people that have madness lurking underneath a veneer of convention. If there is no veneer, there's no point. It is not compelling to see crazy people go insane. It's like watching a corpse get shot. Christian Bale isn't much of an actor in my opinion, especially now that there's compelling evidence that he's a real life nutjob with a very thin, penetrable veneer of sanity.