I hear a lot of talk...but did anybody actually understand this flick?

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It's like watching a real life version of Sims. Hollow.

He kills his head of security because his head of security would not have allowed him to pay a visit to a man who was out to kill him.

Robbie Collin of The Telegraph gave the film four stars out of five, stating, "It's a smart inversion of Cronenberg’s 1999 film eXistenZ: rather than being umbilically connected to a virtual world, Packer is hermetically sealed off from the real one."

"Cosmopolis" is a movie about what it feels to be disconnected from the "real world". It's a movie about the nihilism, despair and boredom of those who're without a meaningful goal or purpose on their lives.

Half way intelligent? Cool. Which half?



They sicken of the calm who knew the storm

It's actually very clear if you read the novel first. I'm not that bright where interpreting film is concerned, but I didn't have much trouble once I'd read Cosmopolis. Of course, I may be misinterpreting it completely.
Yes, the movie had a sort of sheen of insanity to it, but that was deliberate. It's about a man engaged in an enormous act of destruction and self-destruction. He is doing it partly in a conscious way, and partly as a spontaneous act he doesn't really understand. It's not totally clear to us how much is deliberate because it's not clear to Packer. Over the course of a day he loses his own vast fortune, his wife's family fortune, causes the world economy to become unstable as a result, and finally allows himself to be destroyed.
The riots outside (especially the act of self-immolation by one protestor), and the visible contrasts between wealth and poverty (in one scene Packer's limousine pauses for several minutes in front of a "money mart," the kind offering payday loans for the poor, which is framed in the side window) give us something of an explanation for Packer's apparent "breakdown." So do the conversations he has over the course of his drive.
Packer's long journey across town begins with his desire for a haircut. In both Western and Asian cultures, cutting the hair symbolizes the renouncing of worldly wealth and worldly vanity. Monks are tonsured, shorn, or shaved as a sign that they have detached themselves from these things. The incredibly wealthy Packer spends the day divesting himself of his wealth. He is seen gradually leaving things behind: items of clothing, people (like his wife), his car (which is largely destroyed in the riot), security in the form of his bodyguard, his money, his position, and finally his own life. The haircut itself takes place in the barbershop in Packer's old neighbourhood, a return to his working-class roots and to normal human contact, and is a moment of relative peace before his final act of self-immolation.

The movie is a direct continual line from Videodrome to ExistenZ and now this story. It is about a people divorced from reality. Eric only knows about the world around him through what he reads on the internet. He barely interacts with the world around him, instead of taking the NY subway, bus or just walking through the streets (NYC isn't that large); he cocoons himself in a coffin black Limo.

I think it is safe to say that he is in a very advanced stage of Depression. Although he jokes about destroying culture through economics, he is aware that the city falling into anarchy is due to him. He is also upset that he is hitting 30 and no longer as sharp as his younger employees. So he throws away his own money and goes looking for death.

The whole end scene was because he wanted his killer to be someone larger than life. Eric was a man with a big story and he wanted his murderer to be craziest of the crazy. However, Benno is just some schmuck who wanted a few seconds of limelight. He has no larger agenda except to kill someone infamous.

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