Dahmer - Mente Assassina

I was surprised at this movie. I was expecting a real exploitation flick, packed with heads in freezers, boiled skulls and necromance painted across the celluloid with a generous brush. It's nothing like that. It's a very quiet and introverted picture, focusing on the inner workings of Jeffrey Dahmer. It's very well shot, and the guy playing Jeffrey does a great job of it. The result is a lot more intense than the obvious splatterfest version would have been.

But, I must admit, I still found the movie lacking. It has tons of great characterization, but there is no narrative drive in the script. It's basically Jeffrey Dahmer taking guys back to his place and flashbacking a lot while waiting for the sedatives to kick in. It doesn't really begin, and it certainly doesn't end. As a character study, it's a fine example of how much you can flesh out your characters (obscure pun intended). As a movie, it doesn't cut it. All characters and no plot makes Jeff a dull boy....

"Dahmer" tries to tell one of the most horrific stories of recent years. But the whole story of Jeffrey Dahmer does not get told in this movie. There are some shocking moments, but most of the movie gets bogged down in flashbacks (and even flashbacks-within-flashbacks). At some points, you cannot tell if you're watching another flashback or the present moment in the story. Jeremy Renner plays the title character, with an adequately creepy air. Some of his ghastly crimes are shown, while the gore is kept to a minimum. And Dahmer's homosexuality is mentioned, but much of it is kept just off-camera, as evidenced by the montage of Jeffrey's date rape drug-fueled sodomy marathons. This movie does not try to present Jeffrey Dahmer as Dr. Hannibal Lecter. (How could anyone glamorize this murderer?) But I would have preferred some kind of analysis as to why he became a killer. The strange and tragic story of Jeffrey Dahmer left a lot of people sad and wanting answers. But this movie left me wanting satisfaction.

People seem really disgusted by the film, but the only thing that disgusts me are the negative reviews. This is a very well-made film that was put together on a very low budget. Films like this always have the immediate handicap of focusing not only on an evil, psychotic main character, but focusing on an evil, psychotic main character who we all know. There weren't too many complaints about "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (a great film) focusing on a psychopath, but that's because Tom Ripley is a fictional character. Like everybody, I believe that what Jeffrey Dahmer did was wrong, and I feel sorry for all the families who lost sons and other relatives due to him. But this movie was not made to portray him as a hero, nor a villain. It's meant to portray him as a person. We all know about the crimes that Dahmer committed. But we don't know about Dahmer himself. We don't what drove Dahmer to madness, and what led up to the subsequent rapes, murders and eventual cannibalism. And the movie doesn't try to shock us with gory details of these grisly occurrences, because that's not its intention. There's no use showing us what we already know.

I found this biopic deeply fascinating. I learned a lot about Dahmer that I never knew previously. I can't say I relate to him that much, other than being lonely and an only child, but that didn't stop me from seeing how he was as a human being. While watching the film, I said to myself, "How come we don't learn much about his family life?" Maybe his family life had nothing to do with choosing to be that way. Not every serial killer commits murder because he was abused as a child. From the looks of things, he had a pretty well-to-do upbringing.

What I did get a sense of was his alienation and shyness. He felt his homosexuality served as a handicap in his society. And he wasn't brilliantly sociable, so he didn't have an easy time making friends or getting guys to go out with him, or have sex with him for that matter. But his perversions took him so far that he'd walk into a gay bar and slip roofies into guys' drinks (which is shown in an extended montage), take them to the back and have sex with them as they're helpless and passed out. It's interesting to find out this can happen among homosexuals as well. There's a long history of guys slipping roofies into women's drinks to get them in the sack, so Dahmer was no different from any horny heterosexual guy, only he took it many steps further.

One thing I must criticize is the use of flashbacks. When I first watched the film, I had the impression that the whole movie was about young Jeffrey Dahmer and the story was told in a linear fashion. But after watching the featurette and watching it a second time with the commentary, I realized that the movie was bouncing back and forth from Jeffrey in his later years to Jeffrey in his earlier years. I personally didn't think slapping facial hair on him made him look much older. He still looked like he was in his twenties, so I had no hint of his aging. Once I watched it a second time, the story became much more clear to me, but others watching it for the first time might get confused as well.

I liked the use of lighting. Jeffrey's room is lit completely red, giving it almost a hell-ish appearance. And towards the end, the lighting becomes much darker, as Dahmer becomes more evil.

The performances are good all-around. Jeremy Renner does an incredible job at playing Dahmer, expressing a laundry list of emotions with his face and body language alone. I kept trying to recall where I saw him before, since his face looked very familiar, and then I checked his filmography and found out he was in "National Lampoon's Senior Trip." Of course, this movie gave him a much better opportunity at showing off his acting abilities. Talented, underrated actor Bruce Davison makes a few appearances as Dahmer's father, also doing an incredible job the 10 minutes-or-so he's on screen.

Though I found the film fascinating and thought-provoking, I still wish I could've learned a little more about what drove Dahmer to madness. The director mentioned it wasn't his intention to give backstory on Dahmer's life, and instead make it an emotional drama, but it would've made the film more interesting. But one scene that caught me completely by surprise was when young Jeffrey cringing when cutting up one of his victim's bodies and eventually bursting into tears. I'm sure his remorse decreased over the years, but I don't ever visualize a serial killer feeling shame about his victims. I saw John Liszt (sp) in an interview once and he described his methods of mutilating his victims without batting an eye. So this is not exactly the movie's cue to have the audience feel sorry for Dahmer and cry along with him, but it's enlightening to find out that had emotions as well. He was just so driven by his psychological sicknesses that his emotions couldn't hinder him.

My score: 8 (out of 10)

I found Dahmer to be an interesting exploration into the mind of a serial killer. Light on exposition(flashbacks aside), it allows the viewer to fill in the gaps as to Dahmer's motivation. I think Jeremy Renner did a terrific job portraying Dahmer as a soft-spoken misfit and outsider who's just looking for love. David Jacobson explores the duality of Dahmer effectively and subtlely, as when Dahmer watches people having sex with a mixture of detachment and disdain,and then seeks out his own sexual liaisons with disastrous results. He is so full of self-loathing and shame that he must first drug, then kill his victims to avoid facing the rejection he is sure will happen. When he finally meets Artel Kayaru as Rodney, he has met his alter-ego...someone carefree and uninhibited and it's apparent Dahmer is experiencing conflicting emotions and perhaps some kind of revelation. But it's too late to save him. Low on gore and violence, which was refreshing. Cinematography was first-rate. Locations were depressingly banal and middle America, settings which seem to breed the most monstrous impulses. A lowkey and worthwhile look into the results of unchecked fear rage and shame, and an invitation to explore the little Dahmer in all of us.

Jacobson's film shows little violence. That's a point I'd like to stress because there is a certain audience I think will appreciate this film but who may not give it a chance because they expect graphic nastiness. Against the film's interests, the marketing tries to sell the film to the cheap horror-movie audience and I think this is a pity.

Instead of depicting violence, Jacobson's film discomforts you using dramatic means - principally writing and acting. All of which are used with enough skill to distinguish the film from cheap horror movies. It would be wrong and unfair to dismiss Dahmer because of its packaging. It is a well-written and performed character drama.

It's subject matter is too horrible for the general drama audience to welcome, but at the same time its serious approach makes it too straight for the entertainment market. By that I mean the Hannibal Lecter/Seven audience, who prefer their serial killer tales abstracted (and therefore made safe) by the presence of movie stars.

Dahmer is more akin to Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer in being low budget, filled with unfamiliar faces, and focussed so much on the killer that there is no awareness of the authorities or justice in the story. There is no hero cop or FBI agent in pursuit.

Dahmer is very unlike McNaughton's infamous film because, as already mentioned, it's low on violence, but also because it's a technically better-executed piece of work. The photography and editing, the use of music, the already-mentioned acting and writing, make this a surprisingly good-quality film considering the expectations stacked against it. One technical achievement I find worth noting is how well it recreates period. Sequences set in the 80's have a visual authenticity that puts big budget studio attempts to shame.

Obviously, you know what kind of film you like. If what I've said above sounds interesting to you, then I recommend giving it a look. I repeat that you will not see much in the way of gore or violence. There are plenty of films with more graphic content dressed more commercially. Dahmer won't make you feel good. It isn't a fun movie. But if you are looking for something with more substance you may find it.