Day 28: May 28th, 2010

The Black Dahlia



All Style & No Substance.

Two detectives are on the case of The Black Dahlia, which is taking a huge toll on their personal and professional lives.

The Black Dahlia is a mess of a film, but what a beautiful mess it is. De Palma for all accounts is at fault here for failing to make an interesting film on a topic that should have been essentially easy to do. Everyone likes a good detective story and trying to solve the Black Dahlia case is enough to get the audience invested in the history. This film didn't even make me want to look any of the actual accounts up, which tells you how unaccomplished the film is.

As I said earlier, it is beautiful to look at. Cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond and Brian De Palma have the noir style down perfect in Dahlia and whenever I got bored, which was 90 percent of the film, I would try to get lost in the atmosphere this film creates. Everything is in the right place, yet only the look of the film manages to make me smile.

Josh Hartnett seems miscast in the lead role that required someone with more gravitas. He still has that boyish charm to him and the role required someone with a harder core shell. Someone along the lines of his partner, Aaron Eckhart. Hilary Swank plays Madeleine Linscott, she always seems to rub me the wrong way with her acting choices. This one is no different. How she has two Oscars is unknown to me. Scarlett Johansson is given nothing in this film to do and if she had something, I doubt she would have been able to pull it off.

This film has too many subplots involving the characters that the case itself seemed to play second fiddle. This shouldn't be the case when your film is called The Black Dahlia. It's hard to see that this film was directed by the guy who also gave us Scarface, The Untouchables and Snake Eyes...okay, maybe I'm alone on that one.

I would advise against watching this film as it fails to ignite any interest in the case or what the story should actually be about. Character relationships seem really odd and written by someone who has no real thoughts or intentions with them. The Black Dahlia should be having people look the murder up and discuss, much like Fincher's Zodiac. This film doesn't do any of that, it feels like it wants to be another film entirely. De Palma has always been hit and miss with me and this entry is showing me that he has lost a lot of what people thought was talent.

Not Recommended, especially for those wanting to know more about the case itself.

4/10