Brian De Palma (Mission to Mars,
Snake Eyes) takes on James Ellroy's 1987 neo-noir
novel, "The Black Dahlia", but this one's no
L.A. Confidential.
Instead, it's a seamy murder mystery that plays out as far too campy to take
seriously, with a lack of focus that makes it uncertain just what the film is
really about, if it's about anything at all. Still, it's a De Palma film,
which means a good visual energy and a heavy dose of titillation, and this does
keep the attention while the film is building up to something. It's only
when you realize that this build up doesn't really go anywhere that it begins to
become uninteresting, until it finally gets down to the climax, when everything
falls completely apart with a laughably executed revelation scene that feels
like it belongs more in a comedy than in a serious thriller.
Those who are interested in grisly crime
mysteries will already recognize the subject of Ellroy's book as the infamous
"Black Dahlia" murder, where a young female drifter named Elizabeth Short
(Kirshner, According to Spencer)
was
murdered, her torso cut in half, and her body drained of blood. To this
day, the murder has not been solved, so what follows in the book is mainly
fiction. The film is set in Los Angeles during the 1940s, where two
ex-boxing champ cops, Bucky Bleichert (Hartnett, Lucky
Number Slevin) and Lee Blanchard (Eckhart,
Thank You for Smoking), are involved in part of
the investigation behind that grisly murder. The clues take them into the
seamy, corrupt underbelly of Hollywood of the times, with leads that take them
into the realm of pornographic films, prostitution, lesbian clubs, and their
ties with the well-to-do establishment that greases their wheels.
Although one could point to several things
as to why the film doesn't work, ultimately I feel that most of the blame has to
be shouldered by Brian De Palma himself for never establishing the right tone
for the film throughout. It's difficult to say if the movie is supposed to
be a mystery, thriller, romance, comedy, drama, or action, changing directions
quite often, while scenes go by without any real connection with the scene that
comes before. De Palma has often been criticized for being more interested
in how to stage a scene more so than he is in the content of it, and that
feeling certainly bears true here.
One other thing that the film lacks is real
star presence. While The Black Dahlia does sport an impressive cast
of recognizable actors, none of them are quite formidable enough to knock us out
with an interesting character portrayal. Hilary Swank (Million
Dollar Baby, The Core) comes closest in a vampish femme fatale role, but with the low-key Hartnett on the other side, they
feel like characters from different movies altogether. Meanwhile,
Johannson's (Scoop, The
Island) character hardly merits someone with her talent, so when she is
relegated into a thankless supporting role, there's an imbalance created, as if
there should be more substance there that never comes to light. I guess
the "should have more substance" comment could be directed toward the movie as a
whole, as important plot points feel glossed over in favor of the sexier
material.
The Black Dahlia has occasional
hiccups of interest, but never really strings them together sufficiently to gain
any momentum. Whatever tenuous grasp on our attention it still manages to
hold falls completely apart in a ridiculous gunfight sequence, and a final
summation to the mystery, featuring over-the-top acting that sinks the entire
film into the realm of the absurd. If De Palma lets it all rip because
doesn't care anymore, why should we?
I'm uncertain as to who to recommend The
Black Dahlia to, except perhaps those who have enjoyed the novel and are
curious how the film plays out, despite the fact that the film differs from the
book in substantial ways. Perhaps it may even gain reputation as an
example of great camp (I'm not sure this was intentional given De Palma's recent
track record), although that's certainly not something
that De Palma would probably be proud of. While the film does center
around two detectives trying to determine who drained the blood and removed the
reproductive organs of some young wayward girl, the real mystery is why someone
drained the intelligence out of Ellroy's novel, ripping out its soul in favor
of glossy, empty-headed vacuousness.
