How sad is this?

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Renner makes this movie worth watching. His acting of such a complex and disturbed individual is amazing. Its important to remember that Dahmer had a psychological disorder which deeply affected his emotions and Renner manages to convey the deep and painful emotions even through the cold and stoic face Dahmer presented. But as for the movie itself, it misses the majority of what makes Dahmer's case so memorable. In order to understand Dahmer and his actions there must be a portrayal of how desperate he was for a companion - the driving force behind so many of his experiments and murders. The movie switches back and forth between time periods in Dahmer's life with little explanation or transition making it hard to follow if you are not intimately familiar with the case. If you are familiar with the case you may enjoy seeing such an interesting portrayal of the man himself but you are likely to be disappointed by all the missing details. For true crime fans its not a waste of time but it won't be something you'll come back to again and again. For Jeremy Renner fans though, you'll see a lot of what makes him such a great actor.

The crimes of Dahmer were sensational, and being from the mid-west, this writer knows that they were front-page news, and they hit home hard. This film does little to help understand Dahmer the killer or Dahmer the man. In fact, it is a huge disappointment because it does not cover the ultimate apprehending of Dahmer by an all too indifferent Milwaukee PoliceDepartment. To some degree, they bear responsibility for the protracted crime wave that ensued because of their inability to recognize what was happening. Dahmer, as did the cops, suffered from the blinding racism that was...and to some extent still is...pervasive in the society, and which may have been an influence on how he chose his victims. These attributes are all down-played in this film. Not much gore, and not much of a shocker. It fails to get across the elements of sheer evil and terror that were associated with these acts. Because of the lackluster way in which the film moves, and because it did not move me to shock but to anger...and because the script, acting, and chronology were disappointing...if not non-existent...I cannot recommend this film as being an authoritative source for familiarizing one's self with Dahmer. This is a film that literally demands the kind of blood and guts and cannibalism that we witness in action packed adventure films because it truly happened. Yet we get little of it. The film leans a bit too much toward being sympathetic to Dahmer, and that is dangerous. While Dahmer's case merits understanding to be sure, he does not merit sympathy in any wise. Maybe down the road, some intrepid soul will produce the definitive film on Dahmer. Unfortunately, for us, this film is not it.

This is the story of an oily, but good-looking nerd named Jeffrey Dahmer; he loses his marbles after picking up a hunk who declines to have sex with him. The hunk, who used to wrestle in high school, gets chopped up as a consequence. This makes Dahmer's kitchen a bloody mess, because he is not proactive when it comes to cleaning up after himself. Apparently (and, this isn't shown), Dahmer had sex with the hunk's body, because this becomes his preferred sex act. He has sex with "dead" bodies for some intervening time - putting "dead" in quotes here, because Dahmer doesn't kill his victims; instead, he drugs them.There is also, apparently, some action between Dahmer and a mannequin he keeps in the closet (again, this isn't shown, but it seems to fit the character's personality). Dahmer picks up his soon-to-be doped lovers at a gay bar which also happens to double as a hotel for one-night-stands. Well, the groggy men must have looked a sight upon awakening, because the bartender gets hip to Dahmer's tricks, and cuts him off; in fact, bouncers throw Dahmer out on his butt. His ruse up, Dahmer decides to permanently "lobotomize" a man because finding another gay bar with attached hotel accommodations can't be an easy task.Studying pictures of the human brain, Dahmer uses his excellent "gaydar" to pick up a man shopping for sneakers. Then, he drills a hole in the drugged man's head, and puts him to bed. Also, Dahmer has either a more human-like mannequin or another body in bed with him. But, three is not enough company for Dahmer, and he picks a fourth man up while shopping for a knife. Alas, the bottle of pills Dahmer uses to drug his victims has dwindled down to a couple of hits, and the victim doesn't pass out. As a result, we get to see some heartfelt communication between the men, and the beginnings of an actual relationship.While still violent, Dahmer reveals his softer, philosophical side to his potential victim. He's actually a pretty clever dude. Finally, it seems like Dahmer has made a love connection. To see if it works out for the men, you'll have to watch the movie yourself… "Dahmer" is based on a true story and is done in the "non-linear" style (expect flashbacks). It's not quite a horror story and not quite a serial killer story. But, the performances are (all kidding aside) excellent. Director David Jacobson and Jeremy Renner make the lead character a sympathetic psycho, though we're never really sure why we should like him. And, determining what makes him tick is difficult. Watching Mr. Renner interact with his three victims - wrestler hunk Matt Newton (as Lance), sneaker dude Dion Basco (as Comte), and especially knife clerk Artel Kayaru (as Rodney) - is the film's greatest strength.******* Dahmer (6/21/02) David Jacobson ~ Jeremy Renner, Artel Kayàru, Matt Newton, Dion Basco

I sympathize with the victims of this monstrous man.A look into the lifestyle of Jeffrey Dahmer a serial killer. The film does not show his cannibalistic acts, necrophilia, capture, court trial and death which I believe should have made it the most complete film of him.The film portrays the sexuality of Dahmer, who was a homosexual, but who hated his own sexual identity. This caused him to commit the foul murders shown in the film. He thought that homosexuality was a perversion in the eyes of his peers and family. However he indulged himself without limit with sex of this sort with prostitutes and with his helpless victims.He enjoyed dominating his victims during intercourse as we see in this film. After sex he usually dismembered his victims keeping their heads in his fridge. He enjoyed collecting human bones as well. He had made a fetish with human bones as well. And that is the bizarre part of his persona. Not only content with indulging in sex with his helpless victims, he has to butcher them as well? He could have indulged himself with gay sex freely with willing men without the need to kill.The only thing that fits here was that he was a sadist, a necrophile and of a deceptive turn of mind. He would lie to his victims, spiking their drinks with drugs to paralyze them, and then rape them at his leisure.Similarity here with John Wayne Gacy a notorious serial killer who similarly employed domineering sodomy to his hand-cuffed victims.Arrest and Death: On July 22, 1991, Dahmer lured another man, Tracy Edwards, into his home Dahmer struggled with Edwards in order to handcuff him, but ultimately failed to cuff his wrists together. Wielding a large butcher knife, Dahmer forced Edwards into the bedroom, where Edwards saw pictures of mangled bodies on the wall and noticed the terrible smell coming from a large blue barrel. Edwards punched him in the face, kicked him in the stomach, ran for the door and escaped. Running through the streets, with the handcuffs still hanging from one hand, Edwards waved for help to a police car driven by Robert Rauth and Rolf Mueller of the Milwaukee police department. Edwards led police back to Dahmer's apartment, where Dahmer at first acted friendly to the officers. However, Edwards remembered that the knife Dahmer had threatened him with was in the bedroom. When one of the officers checked the bedroom, he saw the photographs of mangled bodies, and called for his partner to arrest Dahmer. As one officer subdued Dahmer, the other opened the refrigerator and found a human head. Further searching of the apartment revealed three more severed heads, multiple photographs of murdered victims and human remains, severed hands and penises, and photographs of dismembered victims and human remains in his refrigerator.His arrest in 1991, subsequent court trial and imprisonment, and his death at the hands of by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver. with a bar from a weight machine on November 28, 1994. Dahmer died of severe head trauma while on his way to the hospital in an ambulance. Brilliant direction by David Jacobson. Superbly acted by Jeremy Renner as Jeffrey Dahmer and Bruce Davison as Lionel Dahmer.