Movies / Movie Reviews

The Black Dahlia - De Palma Stumbles (2007 Oscar Nominee)

By Leroy Douresseaux
February 8, 2007 - 13:07

The Black Dahlia
Starring:  Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Mike Starr, Fiona Shaw, John Kavanagh, Rachel Miner, and Mia Kirshner
DIRECTOR:  Brian De Palma
WRITER:  Josh Friedman (based upon the novel by James Ellroy)
PRODUCERS:  Art Linson, Avi Lerner, Moshe Diamant, and Rudy Cohen
GENRES:  Crime, Drama, Mystery
RATING:  MPAA - R for strong violence, some grisly images, and sexual content, and language
DISTRIBUTOR:  Universal Pictures

It's 1947 - post WWII Los Angeles.  Los Angeles policemen Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) and Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart) are working in "Warrants," chasing probation and parole absconders.  They're also Mr. Fire (Lee) and Mr. Ice (Bucky), former boxers who fight each other in an exhibition match to support the department.

After one of their cases transforms into a horrible shootout, the partners come upon another crime scene just around the corner.  The body of a young Hollywood hopeful named Elizabeth "Betty" Short (Mia Kirshner) has been found mutilated and dumped in a field.  Short's murder becomes a media sensation, and the victim is dubbed "The Black Dahlia."  Suddenly, Bucky and Lee find the case sitting in their laps, and they must venture into Tinseltown's darker side to piece together Short's secret life as a struggling actress.  Bucky eventually discovers that Lee has become so obsessed with the case that he's neglecting his live-in girlfriend, Kay Lake (Scarlett Johansson), and Bucky reluctantly follows his partner down the rabbit hole of dark secrets and people all-too-willing to take human life.

Sometimes you'll see a movie based upon a novel, and even if you haven't read the book, it seems obvious to you that a lot of the text was just ripped out and thrown to the wind.  I got that feeling with Brian De Palma's The Black Dahlia, an adaptation of James Ellroy's 1987 novel of the same title.  The novel is, of course, based upon a real murder case with which Ellroy blended elements of his own life.  The script by Josh Friedman (who co-authored Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds) is a disaster.  Things just happen suddenly - out of the blue - without an explanation, and watching those scenes just creates the notion that there's always so much more to each scene that the viewer needs to know - not just wants to know.  Resolutions arise from subplots that were barely (if at all) introduced earlier in the narrative.  It's as if Friedman gutted the book and kept a bunch of incomprehensible scenes to use in the making of a screenplay

Brian De Palma has made a career that seems to alternate between really good movies such as Scarface, and the really bad films like Bonfire of the Vanities, which was, interestingly enough, also based upon a broad and expansive best-selling novel from the late 1980's.  De Palma's adaptation of Vanities also threw away a lot of the book, and the film suffered for it.  The Black Dahlia is not quite as bad as Bonfires.  Dahlia has its moments here and there, but mostly this is a Film-Noir wannabe that is all stylish veneer and no substance.  The beautiful sets, costumes, and cinematography (which earned Vilmos Zsigmond an Oscar nomination) can't give substance to a film when the director and writer can't.

The performances aren't any good either, and Josh Hartnett's role as a cop would look bad even in a bad TV movie about cops.  Two-time Oscar-winner Hilary Swank (Boys Don't Cry, Million Dollar Baby) generates quite a bit of heat as a really nasty and duplicitous femme fatale, but it's wasted on this bad movie.  The other performances are mainly a parody of the good acting in movies like The Maltese Falcon and Chinatown.

D+

Academy Award nomination:  "Achievement in cinematography" (Vilmos Zsigmond)

For more movie reviews, visit http://www.negromancer.com.

 

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12