Mr. film stylist Brian De Palma and crime novelist James Ellroy might have seemed like a good idea to mix and match. The resulting film, The Black Dahlia is a completely boring 1940's mystery.
Brian De Palma's usual razzle dazzle with the camera can't even begin to save this. An example of the film's unsatisfactory story style is in the first 20 minutes that involve setting up the relationship between the two detectives. They are fighters who hammer away at each other as some sort of LAPD public relations stunt, it's supposed to bring them together as friends but it just goes on and on. A good screenwriter could have streamlined it into about a 5 or 10 minute scene.
The whole mystery story is a confusing and uninteresting mess. De Palma should have learned from Howard Hawks on The Big Sleep, concentrate on a few really good scenes and try not to annoy the audience the rest of the time.
The Black Dahlia also has incredibly unsatisfactory casting with the exception of Aaron Eckhart as a 1940's cop, who at least looks the part. Pretty boy Josh Hartnett is supposed to be a hard boiled cop, fail. Hillary Swank is supposed to be a hot sexy party girl, another fail and Scarlett Johansson, Hollywood's favorite eye candy du jour demonstrates her inability to create a character (aka learn to act).
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| Looking good until she opens her mouth |
The Black Dahlia is a good looking film, Vilmos Zsigmond was responsible for the photography, Dante Ferretti was in charge of the look of the film. The chief offender seems to be Josh Friedman the screenwriter who was probably screwed when he took on the project and somehow had to condense a 300 page novel into a 2 hour film.
A worthless film.
121 minutes
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