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Film review

Director loses sight of 'Dahlia'

In his new film, Brian DePalma spends too much time on everyone else, and the audience suffers.

By STEVE PERSALL
Published September 14, 2006

	[Universal Pictures photos]
	Josh Hartnett and Hilary Swank add star power to The Black Dahlia’s fictionalized tale of obsession, love, corruption, greed and depravity.
	Hooked on crime For James Ellroy, whose book The Black Dahlia has been transformed into a new film, real-life murder and law-breaking inform his fiction.

Movies are regularly "based on" or "inspired by" true stories and novels. The Black Dahlia is the first I can recall credited as being "fictionally based" on a novel, whatever that means.

It sure looks like director Brian DePalma and screenwriter Josh Friedman never read James Ellroy's account of a grisly 1947 murder never solved. The author's diligently researched facts are lacking, little of the movie feels authentic and the mystery surrounding slain starlet Elizabeth Short is a shockingly small part of the plot.

The Black Dahlia, the movie, is really about two policemen with the blues. DePalma spends 20 minutes spinning his signature style - i.e. forgeries of Alfred Hitchcock - and stoking the rivalry of fictional cops Dwight "Bucky" Bleichart Josh Hartnett and Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart) before Short ever makes a post-mortem appearance.

Then she is shuttled to the background while other lurid cases, the partners' personal flaws and a potential love triangle with Kay Lake (Scarlett Johansson) get more attention.

Suddenly, the way Hollywoodland handled the George Reeves murder-suicide mystery looks much better in hindsight. At least that movie relied on hard evidence to suggest two suspects for killing the Superman actor, and the decision to duck a solution appears smarter than what The Black Dahlia ridiculously proposes.

DePalma picks Short's bones to satisfy his tastelessly operatic desires, much like the crow he shows twice pecking at her mutilated corpse.

But missteps taken in The Black Dahlia are obvious early, starting with Hartnett's casting. He simply looks too contemporary for the era; someone could have at least slicked down his hair to 1940s standards if ego prevented him from cutting it. Hartnett is too pretty and acts too weakly for someone with 36 prize fights under his belt. He looks like a teenager trying to play Nathan Detroit in a high school production of Guys and Dolls. It takes more than suspenders and a fedora to make a period character such as Bucky feel real.

Eckhart manages a bit better with his hot-headed role, at times aiming his square jaw at the camera lens and vaguely resembling young John Wayne. Of course, the Duke never did film noir, but this might be what it would have looked like. Lee's character arc isn't handled smoothly; his addiction to amphetamines comes from nowhere, and his unusual obsession with finding Short's killer is never explained, not even as the work of a dedicated officer.

Johansson looks right for the part, daintily wielding a cigarette holder and purring femme fatale brush-offs. But the role is just another in a long procession of MacGuffins that distract from the mystery the title is selling. Kay has nothing to do with the case and too much to do in the movie.

When DePalma rams into dead ends enough times to persuade him to change directions, The Black Dahlia gets downright silly. Two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank shows up as heir Madeleine Linscott, kinkily enjoying her resemblance to Short, which DePalma uses as an excuse to stage lesbian nightclub scenes - with K.D. Lang performing in drag, no less.

They all get more screen time than Short (Mia Kirshner), whose character development consists entirely of pathetic screen tests and a nudie movie titillating a disfigured lecher (William Finley) figuring into a ludicrous hypothesis of who killed her and why.

Let's just say it involves unlikely adultery, silent film star Conrad Veidt, and someone so crazy that when she leaves a room a clock calls her cuckoo. With wacky touches like that, how can anyone take DePalma or his movie seriously?

The Black Dahlia looks fine, with Vilmos Zsigmond's camera prowling over buildings and around corners, his scenes linked by old-fashioned wipe segues. Mark Isham's musical score should be so classy, rather than grandly blaring hints that this or that is important, so pay attention.

Who killed the Black Dahlia is unknown, but who killed the movie is obvious; DePalma, in the theater, with a bludgeoning baseball bat.

Steve Persall can be reached at (727) 893-8365 or persall@sptimes.com

*   *   *

The Black Dahlia

Grade: D

Director: Brian DePalma

Cast: Josh Hartnett, Aaron Eckhart, Scarlett Johansson, Hilary Swank, Mike Starr, Mia Kirshner

Screenplay: Josh Friedman, based on the novel by James Ellroy

Rating: R; strong violence, gruesome images, sexual content, profanity

Running time: 125 min.

[Last modified September 13, 2006, 13:09:33]