The Black Dahlia Poster

The Black Dahlia (2006)

Crime | Mystery 
Rayting:   5.6/10 71.5K votes
Country: USA | Germany
Language: English | German
Release date: 16 November 2006

Two policemen see their personal and professional lives fall apart in the wake of the "Black Dahlia" murder investigation.

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User Reviews

MovieZoo 15 September 2006

Brace yourself for some real truth. As you noticed on IMDb, this movie was advertised as "Crime / Drama / Mystery / Thriller". The trailer makes the movie look the same. Unfortunately, if you go to this movie with that in mind, you may and should be disappointed. When I see the genre described as it was, I want to see just that. Oh, you can add comic relief, maybe good music, some reasonable horror and nostalgia, but do not do what was done to The Black Dahlia.

They obviously didn't intend to make this a serious movie, but rather it was a cheap attempt to imitate a Film Noir sometimes, a TV mystery sometimes and then other times I don't think they knew what they actually wanted to do.

When I am sucked into a movie that I believe is going to be a mystery, I want to be able to enjoy the movie throughout and get involved in the mystery. In this case, the viewer has to spend far too much time trying to figure out what the movie is trying to do. Just give me the mystery that the movie is about. No one needs to make the movie-making process a mystery.

For those of you who are going just to see Scarlett Johansson, I have to say I am very disappointed in her. Her acting needs a lot of improvement or she needs to find movies that embrace her sensuality. Yeah, she is sexy in this movie, too, but her voice does not fit her actions and her acting is puzzling, not mysterious. I want the Scarlett I knew from "Lost In Translation" and "American Rhapsody" at least she could act and her voice fit her character. Other main characters were just as puzzling, however. And honestly, the best and most interesting characters were treated somewhat like extras, though one of those "extras" was by far the best actress in the movie.

You can call this an imitation Film Noir Graphic Novel that should have taken a more serious approach to even those genres.

I gave it a 4 out of 10 out of generosity.

davideo-2 4 March 2007

Fmovies: STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

A new adaptation of a James Ellroy novel, The Black Dahlia is the story of the titular Hollywood diva Elizabeth Short, who is found brutally murdered on wasteland, plunging the city's police department into disarray and remaining the city's most high profile unsolved murder till this day. Sgt. Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart) and his protégé Officer Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) lead the investigation- but both are men with unseen ties to the crime, that could bring the whole police department down with them.

The last great adaptation of an Ellroy novel, of course, was 1997's unforgettable L.A. Confidential. It goes without saying that TBD doesn't come close to matching that film's standards, but that's not to say it's a film with absolutely no intrinsic value whatsoever.

Based around a true story (which interestingly, as I said, remains the biggest unsolved crime in L.A.'s history today), the film brings the atmosphere of the time alive quite well, capturing a good period setting and decent film noir-ish style. Many have complained about Hartnett's performance in one of the lead role's being too bland and wooden. He's not an actor renowned for turning in Oscar worthy performances, but he's certainly not as bad as everyone says he is, not bringing any outstanding depth to his role but carrying it fairly well anyway. A lot of the supporting cast, including Hilary Swank and Scarlett Johansson, show him up a bit, but, there you go. Brian De Palma is also a director who scores as many misses as he does hits, but again he also does fairly well in spite of himself here, gliding things along nicely and building a fairly neat sense of tension and suspense through-out.

A downside is that the pace drags a bit towards the end and there are a lot of twists and turns to pay attention to, maybe a bit too many. Or maybe James Ellroy is a bit over me. Nevertheless, this is a good, solid thriller that is well worth seeing. ****

Galina_movie_fan 15 February 2007

I have only seen 16 movies released in 2006 and I think that "The Black Dahlia" (2006) directed by Brian De Palma is one of the most enjoyable. The way it walks, talks, sounds, and feels truly captivated me. It is a fantastic cinematic achievement. It is shocking, dark, very clever, and enormously beautiful. It is over the top but how would you make a movie about the investigation of the most notorious and gruesome never solved murder in Hollywood differently? I like this exploitative, overplayed, smoldering, overwhelming, cheesy, campy Crime / Drama / Mystery / Thriller (my favorite genres) with the evident elements of black comedy (the most favorite genre when it's done well). I don't deny that it has its problems but I still believe it is worth watching and rewatching, especially on DVD when you can stop it and return to the earlier scene to see what you might have missed the first time. "The Black Dahlia" is one of the rare films that make you forget all their flaws. I am still puzzled with the ending but I LOVE the movie; I could not take my eyes off the screen. The way De Palma uses light, shadows, his combination of colors, black and gold - my favorite, his use of stairways, and the way we first are allowed to notice the body - it is Art, noir film made by an Artist. Besides, I simply can't be indifferent to a movie that uses Cole Porter 's song "Love for Sale" which I adore as performed by k.d. lang.

The movie grabbed me with its visual grandeur, heated atmosphere of danger, dark, desperate mood and that's why I like it so much. I don't like it for its story - after all, it is one of the myriads of versions of what had actually happened 60 years ago, I don't admire it for the acting, even though, Mia Krishner as unfortunate Betty Short was heartbreaking and I did like Hillary Swank for the first time in my life (yes, I know that she is two times Oscar winner but I liked her here, when she said to herself, "Bucky...I'll try to remember... that" - it was a good acting, irony which I've never seen in her before.) I also believe that Fiona Shaw was wonderful in her role - it simply could not be played any differently and to make her character so over the top was an artistic achievement and not the lack of acting abilities as many viewers seem to believe.

I respect the movies that entertain me, excite me, and stay with me even if I see their weakness very well. "Black Dahlia" is one of these movies. I am perhaps one of very few viewers in the whole world who actually was satisfied with the ending and the big revelation before it. Yes, it is bizarre, and it is grotesque, but it fits the whole movie perfectly and when I mentioned earlier how clever the movie was, I meant, how well its creators explored just one of the evidences and using the works of literature, art, and earlier cinema, built the whole possible story behind the murder based on it. Once again, "The Black Dahlia" is IMO one of the best and most entertaining movies of last year which I enjoyed enormously.

Directed by the Artist with a unique vision and talent, "The Black Dahlia" will be appreciated as time goes by.

dglink 15 September 2006

The Black Dahlia fmovies. Dante Ferretti's set design beautifully evokes the 1940's; Vilmos Zsigmond's cinematography enhances the period look; and the voice-over narration has been pulled from film-noir classics. While Brian De Palma's "The Black Dahlia" has much of the look and feel of Curtis Hanson's 1997 "L.A. Confidential," that far superior film boasted better performances and a well-written screenplay. Although both films were based on James Ellroy novels and both had complicated, involved plots, the Hanson film came together with satisfying logic. Unfortunately, De Palma's movie is equally if not more complex and leaves a few threads dangling or at least badly frayed.

Although loosely based on a famous Hollywood murder, "The Black Dahlia" spends more time than necessary in establishing the three-way partnership, if not ménage, between Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, and Aaron Eckhart. The leisurely pace allows viewers to ponder the last time that they saw a film with so many double letters in the stars' names. The trailer, which has played in theaters for weeks, was misleading, and the actual murder and resulting investigation do not begin until well into the film after we have witnessed boxing scenes between the police investigators, Hartnett and Eckhart, and some three-way flirtations that do little to advance the proceedings.

The film only becomes interesting when the campy upper crust Linscott family enters. Hilary Swank as Madeleine Linscott is a deadly femme in black and as fatale as they come. Fiona Shaw as her mother shamelessly steals scenes and chews the banisters in her few minutes on screen, and John Kavanagh as Emmet Linscott adds to the family's quirky personality. An entire film could have been constructed around the Linscotts that would have been far more interesting than the Hartnett-Johansson-Eckhart romance. Scarlett has little to do but purse her luscious red lips and look desirable in tight blouses, which she does quite well. Josh is all squinty-eyed intensity and muscled charm, which he does quite well. Aaron tries for more, but goes a bit over the top; perhaps he would have been more comfortable playing a cousin of the Linscotts.

Although "The Black Dahlia" is not the worst way to spend two hours, the film's pedigree would lead viewers to expect more. Only a week after the less-disappointing "Hollywoodland," De Palma's take on another old Hollywood mystery should have been riveting. All of the essentials were there, except possibly a seasoned troop of stars, for another "L.A. Confidential." Unfortunately, what arrived was a nearly indecipherable mystery within a tedious love triangle that was wrapped in multi-million dollar production values.

jdesando 12 September 2006

"For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak/With most miraculous organ." Shakespeare's Hamlet

Murders are messy on the screen and in real life; screenplays about them can be chaotic and disjointed also. Such is the case with Black Dahlia, a film noir from Brian De Palma, a past master of the macabre and the complicated (Blow Out, Body Double). It has all the trappings of a first-rate detective novel (James Ellroy) made into a 1940's thriller with appropriately moody music of the soulful trumpet (Mark Isham), lush production design (Dante Ferretti), and equally impressive costuming (Jenny Beavan), all set in a timelessly seedy Los Angeles.

There's also the conflicted, sometimes dark hero detective (Josh Hartnett) and the sexy, dangerous femme fatale (Hilary Swank), accompanied by the questionably good voluptuary sex bomb (Scarlett Johansson). As if these noir troublemakers were not enough, writer Josh Friedman seemingly adapts Ellroy's every subplot, every story thread, as if each had to be accounted for in the best CSI tradition.

The original novel was based on aspiring actress Elizabeth Short's unsolved grizzly murder in 1947. After a considerably convoluted exposition, with plot lines rarely intersecting in a unified way, the film has the nerve to offer one of the most extensive denouements in film history, could be a half hour, with lengthy explanation of how all those ends tied together. Needless to say, anti climaxes abound in this last segment, leaving not only more confusion about the plot but also a desire to get back to The Big Sleep without sleeping, a state Black Dahlia threatened several times.

Hartnett's detective says, "Nothing stays buried forever. Nothing." I say this weak noir wannabe should stay buried until a bright 22nd century scholar sees its cultural and aesthetic significance. Until then, it's a jumble of plot points resolved in the end by tedious narration. Even Scarlett Johansson's pulchritude couldn't win me, and that's murder in the first degree.

DonFishies 15 September 2006

It has been almost ten years since Curtis Hanson delivered what was arguably the best picture of 1997, L.A. Confidential. That movie was great in almost every way (my key dislike was only in the performance of Kim Basinger, yet the Academy did not agree with me), and a big part of that was due to the source material from James Ellroy. And now comes The Black Dahlia, another one of Ellroy's books based on detectives in the 1940's, only revolving around a real event and having master filmmaker Brian De Palma at the helm. And unfortunately, the film comes with mixed results.

After taking part in a boxing match which ends up giving a whole lot more power to the L.A.P.D., Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) and Leland "Lee" Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart) are promoted to detectives and become partners. Shortly afterwards, they become entangled in the brutal murder of Elizabeth Short (Mia Kirshner), otherwise known as the titular Black Dahlia. What follows for them is a tale of corruption, greed and vengeance. It may not seem like much (not too mention the femme fatales of Scarlett Johansson and Hilary Swank), but the film really has a lot going on.

And this is where a bit of the problems lie.

Some of the events that occur over the course of the film, are just completely random and almost unexplainable. Hell, random subplots appear and disappear faster than they come up. When it really starts getting down to business, the movie becomes downright confusing, and the narrative does not let up for anyone to truly figure it all out. It gets especially bizarre in the final act, when almost nothing truly makes sense, and we just have to sit and just contend with what ends up happening. It makes it seem like they want the audience to sift through and determine what is relevant to the film and what is not, and only then can they truly grasp onto a full understanding. Even after watching the film a few hours ago, I still question some of the things that happened.

I think one of the key reasons it does not make a whole whack of sense is the fact that it revolves around a real event. Last week's Hollywoodland had this same problem in that the filmmakers do not seem to have an idea of where to draw your attention. Do they want the focus on the murder itself, or do they want the focus on the cops investigating it? Adding in a few seemingly bizarre backstories does not help this either. They seem to strike gold when they focalize on what the murder and its impending investigation is doing to Bucky and Lee, but they do not spend enough time expressing it. They touch on it in passing, and instead, cut to either useless items, or completely random things. You can tell that there is some form of direction however, just not enough.

Hartnett plays Bucky very smoothly, and does a very adequate job in his narration. He really lacks the zest to make his character interesting however, and has a really tough time trying to make the audience care about him. He just does not seem to have the hard-boiled cop schtick nailed down here, and only comes off as a little less than soft-boiled. Eckhart on the other hand, does have the zest and really shines through as Lee. His character goes through most of the changing during the film, and you can see the dramatic change of character as the film progresses. He just does not have nearly enough screen time to truly flesh him from being the strange and mysterious character.

Johansson does well for herself as the girl stuck between the two partne

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