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The film rests on the shoulders and taut torso of Bale, who as a child starred in Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun and played Jesus in a recent TV movie. His Patrick is stylish and creepy--Jack the Ripper in an Armani outfit. Bale's dishy anonymity (he stares at himself and says, "I simply am not there") makes him the ideal black hole at the center of this movie. It needs to be seen and appreciated, like a serpent in a glass cage.
--By Richard Corliss