Dahmer (2002)

Ambitious attempt to get inside the psychology of one of America's most notorious serial killers tries hard but comes up a little short in the end. The problem is that the filmmakers, in choosing to present an even-handed portrait of a troubled (to say the least) man, they end up coming off as soft. Certainly you'd expect a man whose body-count total ran into the double digits to at least seem, you know, threatening. But as presented here, Dahmer only seems like a less dangerous Tom Ripley, a bland and slightly off-center lump of a man who acts rashly on dark impulses. The film's structure proves problematic as well; rather than heightening the tension and illuminating certain aspects of Dahmer's psyche, the constant jumping back and forth between present-day and flashback gives the film an uncomfortably herky-jerky rhythm that tries the patience, especially when it becomes apparent that we're watching a 100-minute anticlimax. There's a lot of good stuff to recommend here, notably Jeremy Renner's subdued performance as Dahmer and a few creepy sequences, but it could have been a lot better. No cannibalism either, what a gyp.

Grade: C+