Laura Clifford
Robin Clifford
During a melee on the streets of 1947 L.A., ex-pugilist Ofcr. Dwight
"Bucky" Bleichert (Josh Hartnett, "Sin City," "Lucky Number Slevin") runs
into another cop he recognizes from the ring, Sgt. Leland "Lee" Blanchard
(Aaron Eckhart, "Thank You for Smoking"), and a partnership is born.
But that partnership turns into a triple set of triangles when the two men
become involved with three women - Kay Lake (Scarlett Johansson, "Scoop"),
Lee's mysterious ward, Madeleine Linscott (Hilary Swank, "Million Dollar Baby"),
the kinky daughter of a wealthy construction magnate and their murder investigation
victim, Elizabeth 'Betty' Short (Mia Kirshner, "Exotica," "Party Monster"),
a woman immortalized as "The Black Dahlia."
Laura:
Director Brian De Palma ("Scarface," "The Untouchables") always flirts with
excess and as of late his films have been edging into complete camp.
That's not to say there's not an enjoyable trashiness of many of these, as
proven by "Raising Caine" and his latest, "Femme Fatale," with which his latest
shares a leering look at lesbian lovemaking. With "The Black Dahlia,"
though, the director makes a fatal mistake - he tries to play things seriously
before devolving into a ludicrous last half hour, a finale so ridiculous it
could be a guilty pleasure if what led up to it hadn't been largely tedious.
De Palma has also let his actors down, allowing Aaron Eckhart to turn in his
first awful performance. Fiona Shaw's histrionics are so out there one
could believe the entire crew was in drunken hysterics goading her on.
That's not to say there are not pleasures to be found here. There's
a showy long take (cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond, "McCabe & Mrs. Miller,"
"The Bonfire of the Vanities") where Bucky and Lee are involved in a shootout
and the camera cranes over a building to as the Dahlia's body is discovered
in an empty lot and there is a hilarious dinner scene at the Linscott home
that plays like a twisted homage to the family dinners of "Shadow of a Doubt."
Hitchcock idolater De Palma also lays out his climax over an outline of "Vertigo's"
bell tower scene, complete with a woman who plays not two parts, but three.
But therein also lies another flaw - Josh Friedman's ("War of the Worlds")
adaptation of the James Ellroy novel all but strangles the story with too
much plot and when he tries to tie all his threads together it turns out
in a gnarly knot. The pugilistic pairing of Lee and Bucky as 'Fire and Ice'
goes nowhere but a bit of heavy handed symbolism and Kay's background is
so twisted she's painted as both victim and criminal while her former tormentor
turns out to be such a non sequitur that he's literally replaced in the same
scene with a villain from another plot. De Palma would have his "Dahlia"
evoke "Chinatown," too, but its shoddy construction scandal is all too aptly
a critique of his film. Attempts to tie Short's facial mutilation to
both her killer and "The Man Who Laughs," a 1928 silent film no one in 1947
would be watching in a theater, are big stretches at best.
The film certainly looks lush and is supported by a nice Mark Isham score
and a cover of "Love for Sale" sung by a tuxedoed k.d. lang surrounded by
lesbian show girls. Scarlett Johansson has been whipped into perfect period
voluptuousness (and reportedly stalled the film's Venice premiere by forty
minutes fussing with her outfit), but relies on her tendencies toward open
mouthed shock and consternation. Dual Oscar winner Swank is oddly cast
as the femme fatale, but her channeling of "Chinatown" era Faye Dunaway at
leasts diverts and shows some stretch. Mia Kirshner, whom Swank is supposed
to resemble (!), is all wrong for Short, though, playing her as a wide-eyed
innocent in a series of completely unconvincing screen tests. Jemima
Rooper ("Kinky Boots") and Rose McGowan ("Scream," "Monkeybone") are better
as Short's acquaintances and Rachel Miner ("Bully") is reminiscent of "Doubt's"
precocious little sister. Fiona Shaw has taken Aunt Petunia and turned her
into an alcoholic raving lunatic. She sure is funny, though.
On the actor front, Hartnett's merely OK as the film's main character, but
Eckhart is so bad it is a wonder he wasn't replaced. Supporting males, like
Mike Starr ("The Ice Harvest") and William Finley ("The Funhouse," "Tobe Hooper's
Nightmare"), provide a well cast look, but John Kavanagh's ("Alexander") Emmet
Linscott is more odd than memorable.
There have been other films (i.e., "True Confessions") based on the Black
Dahlia story, but De Palma's is both the worst and the loopiest. Perhaps
most surprising is that the Black Dahlia story still remains to be told.
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C-
Robin:
Medford, Massachusetts-born Elizabeth Except for (Mia Kirschner) went to Hollywood
in the 1940’s to seek fame and fortune as an actress. Instead, she ground
loathsomeness when her in the altogether body, severed in half and eviscerated of its organs,
was found in a unengaged lot in LA. This heinous murder led to a Cyclopean examination
by patrol but, to this date, has remained unsolved. Helmer Brian De Palma
poses a hypothesis on who committed this terrible misdeed and tells us who
killed “The Black Dahlia.”
Police detectives Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart) and Bucky Bleichert (Josh
Hartnett), pugilists both, are the darlings of the LA regulate conditional on.
Mr. Fire and Mr. Ice are the drawing card in the fight ring that will secure
dogmatic public opinion in spite of a proposition that will garner an eight percent
raise for the entire supervise department. Their much-publicized chance does just
that and Lee and Bucky are assigned to a high improve take advantage of case. Then, Elizabeth
Short’s mutilated fuselage is discovered and the entire LA observe, especially
Blanchard, are thrown into turmoil.
Although Blanchard and Bleichert are not initially assigned to the Short
case, Lee becomes obsessed with the issue woman’s murder, much to the chagrin
of his live-in girlfriend Kay Lake (Scarlett Johansson). She and the two
cops are like the three musketeers but, as Lee becomes more and more obsessed
with the Transitory homicide, this triumvirate begins to employ drop back apart. Lee takes
to popping speed and isolates himself from Kay, pushing her and Bucky closer
together romantically. But, when wealthy and vivacious socialite Madeleine
Linscott (Hilary Swank) becomes a suspect in the killing, Bucky’s judgement begins
to rove. Linscott’s intro to the brouhaha adds a new dimension to the case
and things escape a surmount bizarre.
It has been four years since Brian De Palma directed a coating (his last was
the sexy, campy “Femme Fatale”) and, in the case of “The Black Dahlia,” absence
does not necessarily draw up our hearts broaden fonder. His latest work is a sumptuously
produced piece of work with excellent production design, cinematography and
vestment but the adapted screenplay, by Josh Friedman from the James Elroy
novel, is effete and uninspiring.
The Black Dahlia” uses many cinematic contrivances that do not keep from tell
the story of who killed Elizabeth Short. The device of Bucky attending a
theater to see the silent classic, “The Man Who Laughed”, though of significance
to the fable, rings incredibly false. (Didn’t silent film verging on die out
from the face of the earth by 1947? So who would even go to see one, especially
an LA cop?) Then, there is the “screen test” of Elizabeth that is alleged
to communicate the murdered stuff depth of character but is no more than a manufacture
that lacks any believability if you have ever seen a screen analysis, mainly
from the 1940’s. These, and other aspects of the film, draw attention but
in a bad way.
Then, there’s the acting. Josh Hartnett isn’t bad as Bucky but Aaron Eckhart,
whom I consider the choice actor of the two, is horrible as the troubled,
obsessed Lee. Blanchard blows from supremely self-confidant to totally possessed
by the disused girl without perks of verified judgement. Scarlett Johansson is proving
to be a one note actress and uses her voluptuous core and pouty lips in lieu
of acting. Hilary Swank has some fun vamping it up and overcomes, a little,
the bad script. Of the supporting cast, only Fiona Shaw comes out on top
as Madeleine’s hophead, drinker nourisher who has a celebrated “Mommy Dearest”
seriousness that is, almost, value the honorarium of admission. On a camp unvarying, hers
is one of my favorite supporting performances of the year so get ahead.
De Palma derives sundry scenes in “The Black Dahlia” from his own work, such
as his also derivative Odessa Steps arrangement in the “Untouchables,” and,
of course, Alfred Hitchcock. One would think that he would try for some originality,
at this point of the racket, but he has always been a feigned of himself and
others. I give it a C.