The Black Dahlia
The Black Dahlia is an adaptation of a novel by James Ellroy. The movie, and book, is inspired by the most notorious unsolved murder of 1940’s California. The cast includes young talent like Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, and Mia Kirshner. Two Los Angeles cops are appointed to investigate the death of Elizabeth Short, a woman found brutally murdered. Bucky Bleichert played by Hartnett discovers that his girlfriend, played by Swank, had connections to the murdered woman and Bleichert begins to discover corruption within the LAPD.
I was hopeful concerning Black Dahlia as a murder mystery set in 1940's L.A. sounds like an interesting time. We have murder, mystery, sex, and scandal. All the ingredients one needs for a good story of this type, however, Black Dahlia fails to deliver. I hate to be harsh, but the film was literally making me fall asleep.
All the key ingredients that should have made Black Dahlia a success were not used to their full potential. The movie is just plain slow...slow...slow. Slow like your light is green but your waiting for an old woman with a walker to cross the street slow. Slow. On top of the slowness we have the acting. I am a fan of Johansson but I don’t think this was the role for her. Matter of fact I don’t know why any of these actors chose this script. Ok well I do, I’m pretty sure it’s the money and we can all understand that, but there are other scripts too, right? The movie consumed the actors instead of the actors making their characters their own. The Black Dahlia seemed to be like a record that was scratched and played over and over again. And did I mention it was slow?
I love the movies Carlito’s Way, The Untouchables, and Scarface so I was surprised to see that Brian De Palma was the director for this flick. But hey, everyone is allowed to make mistakes right? I think that the bulk of this film’s efforts were put into the dialogue, setting, and costumes, which is, of course, all very important. What’s also important is the content. If the content isn’t interesting no one is really going to care about anything else. I’ve seen plenty of Cold Case File shows and those shows were much more interesting than The Black Dahlia. The Black Dahlia really needed a dose of old time sophistication and intrigue.
Story C
Acting D
Visuals A
Originality D
Enjoyability D
Overall Grade D
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