Good acting, well-made but not GOOD

Rating: 7/10 (24 April 2000)

For starters they took an unfilmable book, toned down all the gore (or removed it entirely) and tried to film it. The book was bad to begin with...why try to film it? The plot is thin and stretched out to 105 minutes and the point is made early on in the film...and then there's no where to go! There was nothing well new or exciting in this film. What kept it interesting was the direction and the acting. Mary Harron is one a hell of a director--she gets inside her characters' heads and lets us know all about them visually. The acting is superb--especially Bale. He's playing a sociopath and a serial killer, but he makes you understand and (believe it or not) actually care for the guy! Everybody else is great too, but Bale is just incredible. So, good job all around, but there's no way this could ever be a good movie. Still, it's worth seeing for the direction and acting. Hopefully, this will bring bigger and better things for Bale.