The Black Dahlia has all the elements
of a great noir film, so why isn't it? With Oscar-winner Vilmos
Zsigmond providing stunning high-contrast images, Oscar nominee
Mark Isham playing a melodramatic score, and Oscar-winning
production designer Dante Ferretti bringing the gritty world
of 1940's Los Angeles to life, why doesn't the film work?
Who takes the blame for these incredible contributions being
in vain? The failure comes down to director Brian De Palma
whose lack of vision dooms the film to a fate more harrowing
than that of the Black Dahlia herself. With his recent track
record of disasters like Mission to Mars, Snake
Eyes and Femme Fatale, this hardly comes as
a surprise.
The Black Dahlia is one reference to
classic noir films after another, and in the hands of someone
more adept at the art of homage, like Quentin Tarantino, it
would be a blast. Instead, the viewer is left hoping to be
the victim of a brutal murder just to end the boredom. De
Palma includes his obligatory sexism and unnecessary violence
(see Scarface) from the opening riot and boxing match
to the disturbing stag film of the film's end. In order to
make room in the film for these elements, he had to sacrifice
one thing: story. Having never read the original James Ellroy
novel, I don't know whether it was he or screenwriter Josh
Friedman who decided to fill the last fifteen minutes with
a barrage of absurd revelations and explanations. It's as
though they cram the resolution down the audience's collective
throat in a last hope that doing so will a) make sense or
b) make up for the nothing that happens up until that point.
They succeed in c) none of the above. The gruesome murder
of Elizabeth Short is enough to fill a whole movie, and is
certainly more interesting than the emotionless love triangle
we are forced to endure for the first half of the film, before
the murder even occurs, and it's a shame a murder mystery
like this almost totally avoids delving into such an intriguing
case.
The slowness of the film isn't helped any by
the overall disastrous performances by the three leads. Josh
Hartnett and Scarlett Johansson display all the charisma,
range and realism of a pair of cardboard cutout puppets, and
their romantic scenes appear little better than said puppets
knocking into one another a la Punch & Judy. Aaron Eckhart
is only mildly better in his troubled cop role. His obsessions
and numerous emotional outbursts come across as unmotivated
and at times downright comedic in their overstatement. The
saving graces of the film on the acting front are those of
the quirky upper-crust Linscott family, played by Hilary Swank,
Fiona Shaw, and John Kavanagh. I would have liked to see more
of them, if not only because they were more organically performed,
but simply because the characters are more interesting, which
is something the film needs desperately.
If you are a fan of De Palma, I would recommend
you spend your two hours watching one of his more seminal
works to satiate any cravings. I would, similarly, advise
any noir aficionados to spend their time with the more successful
L.A. Confidential, Brick or even the year's
other unsolved Hollywood murder mystery Hollywoodland.
Now, if you like watching bad movies for the sake of irony,
or you're in on the inside joke De Palma's been playing on
everyone for years, then this movie will leave you with a
grin from ear to ear.
