Christian Bale, Chloë Sevigny
It is thanks entirely to director-coscripter Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol) that there are almost as many yuks as yucks in the movie version of poseur-author Bret Easton Ellis's blood-soaked 1991 novel. Ellis's sicko tale about a yuppie serial killer featured murders and mutilations sandwiched between mentions of designer labels, but Harron turns it into a satire on narcissism and consumerism run amok in the '80s. Her take keeps Psycho almost amusing for the first third, peaking in a clever scene in which the killer (Bale, sickly slick) and his "Wall Street pals pull out their business cards like dueling gunmen in the Old West. But the satire thins out badly after that. (R)
Bottom Line: More boring than shocking
Keeping the Faith
Edward Norton, Ben Stiller, Jenna Elfman
Norton makes his directing debut with a pleasant but slack comedy about two boyhood buddies, now grown up to become a priest (Norton) and a rabbi (Stiller). They both fall for another school-days friend (Elfman), back in town as a corporate whiz. Norton and Stiller have nicely contrasting comedy styles: The first is as dry and light as talcum powder, while the second rips through his lines with bantam energy. Neither has much oomph as a romantic lead. And while Elfman can be endearingly silly in a golly-gee way, something like Lisa Kudrow if she'd been stage-mothered by Shirley Temple, she doesn't seem capable of costing not one but two men their vocations. (PG-13) Bottom Line: Hard to believe
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