Review of The Black Dahlia (2006) by Markb. — 13 Nov 2006

The long, slow, sad descent of Brian De Palma continues unabated. He's got everything going for him here: interesting cast (with one exception, but we'll cover that later); the fascinating subject of an unsolved case covered in great detail (obsessively, some might say) by James Ellroy, considered by many to be THE great crime novelist of our time; admittedly first-rate art direction and period design.

..and still De Palma turns out yet another late career disaster of Bonfire of the Vanities/ Mission to Mars/ Femme Fatale proportions. Could it be that the once-great director of such can't-miss entertainments as Phantom of the Paradise, Obsession, Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, The Untouchables and Carlito's Way, always acclaimed as a master stylist and proud of himself for it, has totally succumbed to hubris and in doing so completely forgotten that his previous films worked because he got his audience to genuinely care about Carrie White, Eliot Ness, the Phantom and even Tony Montana? I mean, The Untouchables could've lost the Armani wardrobes altogether and nobody would've missed them much because the storytelling was so incredibly solid.

Admittedly it takes a filmgoer of incredible naivete to NOT realize that voyeurism and fascination with same comprise a major element of all of De Palma's work (just as it did with his idol Alfred Hitchcock) but here De Palma has turned the unsolved Elizabeth Short murder case--an incident teeming with human interest, tragedy and pathos--into a shallow, sick and frankly disgusting freak show.

(A central character's mid-film demise, which should've been moving as well as shocking, is instead only a borderline-hilarious distraction because of the ridiculous amount of gore De Palma insists on heaping on.

) Performances are almost straight down the line uniformly lousy, but what would you expect with the mannequin-like Josh Hartnett in the lead? As a conflicted cop and the film's narrator, Hartnett's two-trick repertoire of facial expressions shifts from his typically blank stare to a strange grimace that's supposed to suggest compassion and/or moral indignation but instead just looks like Hartnett needs to add a lot more bran to his diet, and I always thought that if FRED MACMURRAY of all people could narrate a film noir and pull it off, anyone could.

..but I've now been sadly and officially proven wrong. Worst of all, Hartnett manages to pull his normally very capable costars, Aaron Eckhart and Scarlett Johannsen, down to his own level of three-flights-below-mediocrity, with only Hilary Swank, who triumphs over a silly Irish accent that's forced on her to give a wonderfully sultry, devious portrayal that's undoubtedly causing Chad Lowe to strike himself with hard, blunt objects at rapidly accelerating speed and force, emerging as a survivor.

And there's simply no plausible excuse for what De Palma does to the great character actress Fiona Shaw; her normally wonderful work recognizes the implicit humanity and sympathy implicit in ALL her roles (the virginal dupe in Triumph of Love and even her subtle portrayal of the trapped-in-suburbia Mrs.

Dursley in the Harry Potter movies are two superb examples) but here, as a key witness/ suspect, she's so overwrought, grotesque and ridiculous that it's acutely painful to watch her. Ditto for the rest of De Palma's film: ironically, his best casting (Swank included) is of HIMSELF as the disembodied voice of the cruel, mean-spirited director of the tawdry smokers Elizabeth's auditioning for, a creep who cares nothing about his subject except how to exploit her in the crassest way possible.

Given the content and approach of De Palma's recent thrillers, and The Black Dahlia in particular, this stands as one of the most apt pieces of typecasting since Jackie Robinson played Jackie Robinson in The Jackie Robinson Story.