Dahmer

By: Amos Lassen

"DAHMER"
A Fictionalized Biopic
Amos Lassen
Dahmer" is a fictionalized, fragmented biopic of one of America's most notorious serial killers, Jeffrey Dahmer (Jeremy Renner) as he contemplates his latest potential victim, a young man named Rodney (Artel Kayaru). As Dahmer considers the fate of his prey, we see flashbacks to the events that led to his evolution as a monster, from Dahmer's d relationship with his father (Bruce Davison), to his first kill, to his cruising of the gay bars of Milwaukee. This is a brand-new Collector's Edition of this indie cult hit on DVD and Blu-ray.

"Dahmer" attempts to shed some light on the Milwaukee serial killer and cannibal who was murdered in prison in 1994. It succeeds by painting him as pathetic but never sympathetic. However, the viewer must be able to overcome the sensationalism hanging over this movie. It's hard not to wonder why it needed to be made. His victims' families still live with the horror of what Dahmer did to their loved ones and his story has been told many times.
Filmmaker David Jacobson doesn't seem to know in which direction to go with his film. He comes close to crass exploitation by juxtaposing scenes of carnage with shots of chocolate spilling into a vat (Dahmer worked in a candy factory). Other moments carry real suspense and emotional weight.
The real Dahmer came off as smug in interviews, even when expressing remorse. This movie instead highlights what a supreme coward he was. He didn't have the nerve to approach men for sex, so he them. He overpowered victims not by cunning or of will, but with mickeys slipped into drinks.

Jeremy Renner performs as an egomaniac, convinced he's smarter than everybody and scared he'll get caught. He moves easily between Dahmer as grown-up shell and as a fresh-faced teenager (seen in flashbacks). He sees Dahmer going awry because his parents divorced. I wish he had gone a bit deeper into that
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Dahmer got away with killing for so long and the film implies this was because he was a white man of straitlaced appearance who chose minority victims. The film's representation of the arrogance shown by the Milwaukee cops is obscene. When two African American girls find one of Dahmer's victims disoriented and nearly naked in an alley, the police believe Dahmer's story that the kid is , and send him home with Dahmer even after the girls object.

Dahmer should have been the poster boy for the death penalty. Instead, justice came to him through the hands of another prisoner. Dahmer was serving a life sentence (sentenced to over a thousand years) for murdering 17 males of various races, when the 34-year-old was killed in prison two years after his 1992 conviction. The film to its credit does not sensationalize the gore; it's relatively bloodless for a serial killer flick. It attempts to look into Dahmer's sick mind, as the film traces in flashback some of his crimes including his first murder victim when he was 18 and was still living in his parents' house. Dahmer first resorted to murder after inviting a high school wrestler (Matt Newton) over to smoke pot while his folks are on vacation.
To know what went on inside Dahmer's head is a thankless task, even though the film lets us hear his inner thoughts. Jacobson shows him as an ordinary boy-next-door type who blends into the crowd, but for some inexplicable reason he is programmed to go off the deep end and take his alienation and inner anger out on others. He said that he was "a pervert, exhibitionist, masturbator, and killer."

Did Dahmer simply fell through the cracks of the system because no one could see how really demented and dangerous he was? There doesn't seems to be anyone to blame and that's what makes his story so scary as a comment on society. We wonder how many others are like him and how in the world can they be dealt with. After Dahmer was apprehended, his family and acquaintances never suspected he was capable of committing such sickening destructive acts.

As the film continually moves from the past to the present and covers only three of the murders, there are many repetitive scenes of Dahmer luring his victims by offering them drinks and then them nearby when he drags their bodies away from the bar. As the film highlights his life, it never shows what motivated him to eat and have sex with the young men victims when they were corpses, nor did it show him in his cannibalism mode actually eating the corpses. He was so much more than a monstrous nerd with the ability to be so appealing that he can have his potential victims let their guard down despite his weird behavior and just follow him willingly into his apartment for a drink. The film seemed to be desperate to find an excuse for what Dahmer did but couldn't since it never got to his psyche.

He was not a pleasant character, and though his part was well-acted in an understated manner by Jeremy Renner, his characterization doesn't shed any light on who he was and why he did such horrible things. We only see his egotism, his arrogance, his gloomy outlook on life and his urge to take things by . Dahmer still appears as a monster we know little about. "Dahmer" is not a bad film but it is a pointless one that was more unsettling than informative.