The Black Dahlia Review
“Say hello to another dissapointing 50′s style film noir.”
It seems that 50′s style detective movies with a flare of noir have come into style recently. First Hollywoodland then The Black Dahlia. The movies share some similarities in that they deal with real topics that the director takes some liberty in addressing in a quasi-fictional tense. The Black Dahlia is one of the novels in an apparent trilogy of novels that are written by James Ellroy. The other one that is well known is none other than L.A. Confidential, a movie that got it right. Well kids, sorry to say, but The Black Dahlia doesn’t get it right.
Brian DePalma did The Untouchables. I say this forthright to put the image of The Untouchables in all of your heads, as just how awesome this could have been. DePalma has shown that he has a flare for that time period. And he doesn’t dissapoint visually. The movie was shot incredibly well. There are moments where I felt like I was watching a movie from the 50′s as DePalma uses softening lenses, specifically with Scarlett Johanson. The preformances here weren’t bad, with Josh Hartnett being a pretty dependable protagonist. I like Aaron Eckhart, but his felt too played up. Hillary Swank was a real preformance here, as she once again shows her range, actually looking like a chick for once. Scarlett Johanson doesn’t really tap any emotions here. She’s pretty drab. That being said, the story and script were a mess.
Once again, a story gets caught up in trying to do too much and not focus on the importance of the issue at hand: The Black Dahlia. I felt like the story was about what the case did to the two detectives rather than them solving the case. The suspense was better in places and DePalma fell back on some old Untouchables moment (i.e. The stairs and fountain). I found myself thoroughly bewildered by the entire plot and getting damn near bored. This was goind down fast until DePalma picked it up and finished it quite nicely. His take wasn’t terrible on 50′s film noir, it just wasn’t the right script/story to do it with. While there are refreshing moments in this, it was long and frankly didn’t hold my attention. The script wasn’t held together really all that tightly. I’d hate to compare it to Hollywoodland, but if we could mate the two movies, then something nice would be at the end. All in all, DePalma misses the mark in a big way, but looks pretty cool doing it. This get’s a 5 out of 10, by not doing what it should have.
RATING: 
this is the first review that youve done that i really dont agree with. i loved this movie, i didnt care for aaron eckhart and scarlet, but besides that, i thought it was fantastic. i loved looking at it, i thought the story was great and i loved how it ended. i like this movie because the blak dahlia murder is basically a backdrop for the story, like the book. this story is kinda like…summer of sam, or even titanic, a fake story with the setting of a real event. i dont know, i just loved this movie, and thought it was shot fantastically, and that part at the stairs was amazing.
and as usual, josh hartnett was amazing. people need to realize hes awesome.
Comment by todd — September 20, 2006 @ 11:42 am