It's not just the performance of Jeremy Renner as the notorious serial killer but the way that the character is written and portrayed, as a desperate love starved gay man who took things beyond way too far. You begin to feel sorry for him then feel guilty for feeling sorry for him, hoping that he'd have found what he'd search for, especially with the street smart but sensitive Artel Kayaru whom he spends a romantic day with before things turn weird.
Through flashbacks, you see how Jeffrey began his decent into madness, the product of a broken home, self hatred and the desire to find true love, even if it's his singular unreciprocated love for the men he has already killed. There's the straight jock, a series of men in a bar he drugs and date rapes, the sweet Asian boy he buys sneakers and finally the very sexy Kayaru who leaves but makes the mistake of coming back, offering his body and possibly his heart.
How can you like a movie based on such a vile subject? As a movie connoisseur especially on stories based on real life situations, I find I have to take the good with the bad, and as creepy as this is knowing the truth, there's a sense of feeling sorry for what Dahmer became yet hating the results and knowing the outcome. Bruce Davison is good as Jeffrey's father, but the characterization doesn't really give any indication of what did Jeffrey turn into what he became.
The dark side of Milwaukee gay life is seen through Jeffrey's eyes in two segments, first him standing outside the generically named gay bar and the flashbacks to the series of date rapes, to go to she finally witnessed by a bartender who immediately Point him out to security, and you wonder why Jeffrey wasn't charged with a crime at that point. A lot of what happens here can be substantiated through real testimony, with the two girls who come across the seemingly drunk an Asian boy trying to prevent Jeffrey from taking him away yet stopped by the inept police. However further research shows that a lot of it too, especially the character of Rodney (Tracy Edwards in real life) is quite fictionalized with Edwards later having criminal issues of his own.
I'm glad that this only insinuated the gore of what he did, and I did have to look away a couple of times, particularly with the drilling scene and another scene of him preparing to dismember someone. Renner is fantastic, and Kayaru equally touching, playing somebody who finally had the courage to unleash his heart only to realize what a mistake that was. That makes the film all the more heartbreaking that Jeffrey could have found what he was looking for but screwed it up by whatever demons were inside him.
Through flashbacks, you see how Jeffrey began his decent into madness, the product of a broken home, self hatred and the desire to find true love, even if it's his singular unreciprocated love for the men he has already killed. There's the straight jock, a series of men in a bar he drugs and date rapes, the sweet Asian boy he buys sneakers and finally the very sexy Kayaru who leaves but makes the mistake of coming back, offering his body and possibly his heart.
How can you like a movie based on such a vile subject? As a movie connoisseur especially on stories based on real life situations, I find I have to take the good with the bad, and as creepy as this is knowing the truth, there's a sense of feeling sorry for what Dahmer became yet hating the results and knowing the outcome. Bruce Davison is good as Jeffrey's father, but the characterization doesn't really give any indication of what did Jeffrey turn into what he became.
The dark side of Milwaukee gay life is seen through Jeffrey's eyes in two segments, first him standing outside the generically named gay bar and the flashbacks to the series of date rapes, to go to she finally witnessed by a bartender who immediately Point him out to security, and you wonder why Jeffrey wasn't charged with a crime at that point. A lot of what happens here can be substantiated through real testimony, with the two girls who come across the seemingly drunk an Asian boy trying to prevent Jeffrey from taking him away yet stopped by the inept police. However further research shows that a lot of it too, especially the character of Rodney (Tracy Edwards in real life) is quite fictionalized with Edwards later having criminal issues of his own.
I'm glad that this only insinuated the gore of what he did, and I did have to look away a couple of times, particularly with the drilling scene and another scene of him preparing to dismember someone. Renner is fantastic, and Kayaru equally touching, playing somebody who finally had the courage to unleash his heart only to realize what a mistake that was. That makes the film all the more heartbreaking that Jeffrey could have found what he was looking for but screwed it up by whatever demons were inside him.