To be a success on Wall Street, you really need the killer instinct.

 Patrick Bateman, the protagonist of American Psycho, is a murderously good stock broker. He's also a cool, calculating serial killer.

 Bret Easton Ellis' 1992 novel about a corrupt yuppie stock- broker was an indictment of the materialistic '80s.

 It was also a graphic study of a demented killer who was as meticulous in his nighttime slaughters as he was in the corporate boardrooms.

 Ellis always insisted his novel was a satire, not a slasher horror story.

 Canadian filmmaker Mary Harron agrees and takes a dark, humorous approach to all the mayhem and scheming in Bateman's two lives.

 She wants us to chuckle a little while we're shuddering and she succeeds, but her American Psycho is amusing without ever being insightful or truly scary, which means this is satire without a bite.

 There are numerous scenes of Bateman (Christian Bale) and his buddies comparing wardrobes, discussing restaurants, recounting sexual exploits and detailing their envy for all things materialistic.

 It becomes evident that they are such plastic, self-absorbed people they are interchangeable.

 No one is more plastic than Bateman. He has flawless skin, a sculpted body, melodious voice, impeccable wardrobe and a fabulous apartment.

 What he doesn't have is a heart or soul, so his life is empty.

 The only time he feels anything is when he is wielding an axe, chainsaw, hatchet or nail-gun.

 Bale is genuinely creepy as a creature more mannequin than man. He nails both the facade and the neurosis of the character, but he is reined in by Harron's direction.

 She wants her film to be as cool, clinical and unapproachable as Bateman. Her film looks incredible and uses light, sound and music to enhance the set designs and camera angles, but all this just serves to distance rather than involve the audience.

 The scene in which Bateman invites his mousey secretary (Chloe Sevigny) to his apartment should have frayed the audience's nerves, but Harron fails to build the necessary suspense, tension and terror.

 Bateman's last vestiges of sanity and the film itself begin to whirl out of control when the corpses of his victims disappear and he has a shootout with police cars and helicopters.

 Harron would probably argue that this is dark satire, so logic doesn't have to apply.

 She would just have us applaud the abundant slick cleverness of her vision.

(This film is rated R)

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