Review of Black Dahlia (2006) by Craig E — 23 Nov 2008

What ever happened to the real Brian DePalma? This film is a mess from the first minute to the last with too many story lines that do not connect in any meaningful or realistic fashion. It plays out as a literal translation of a well written novel, which unfortunately rarely works in a film. In fact, the first 20 minutes of the film are nothing but a bloated presentation of the meeting of the two main cops. A better writer and/or director would have found a way to trim it up and/or splice the content into the story. Instead, the audience is forced to sit and wait through what ultimately comes across as contrived.

With so many convoluted back stories, it is hard to keep track of who is doing what or why. And the actual investigatory aspects of the story are practically nonexistent, leaving the audience to simply sit back and watch the mystery solve itself in a wholly unbelievable fashion.

Worse still, the film isn't even worth watching for the performances. Hartnett, Johansson and McGowan seem to sleepwalk their way through their performances, thus sucking out half the energy of the film. And the combination of Swank and Eckhart's nearly perfect film noire performances with the style-over-grace cinematography, poor pacing and overly sentimental score comes across like oil and water: simply incompatible and messy.

All in all, there's not a single reason to recommend this film as a thriller, crime drama or a mystery, simply because it seems that not even DePalma knew what he wanted to make. Thus, he didn't make anything right.