The Black Dahlia

The Black Dahlia is a muted, subdued film noir, surprising given the pyrotechnics and excess that mark the best work of director Brian DePalma and source novelist James Ellroy. Some of this might be heady stuff for a mainstream thriller these days, especially for those who can’t handle lesbianism, but that says more about the times than the film. An often flat thriller, The Black Dahlia is a vaguely disappointing stab at twisted noir that buries within itself some isolated moments that crackle.

In a surprisingly textured performance, Josh Hartnett plays “Bucky” Bleichert, an LAPD officer who Sgt. Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart, unsurprisingly excellent) persuades to join the task force dedicated to tracking the psychopath behind the “Black Dahlia” murder of aspiring actress Elizabeth Short. This notorious 1950s murder was never solved, and writer Josh Friedman, working from the source novel by cult neo-noir writer James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential, The Big Nowhere), weaves a tangled fictional tapestry around this real event, featuring obsessed cops, mentally imbalanced construction barons, police administrators jockeying for power, the lesbian underworld of L.A., and abused, lost starlets.

The story is difficult to follow at times but, I assure you, is a model of clarity compared with the Gordian knot of the book. What the screenplay lacks is the jazzed-up kick of Ellroy’s dialogue, something that Curtis Hanson and Brian Helgeland captured well in their film of L.A. Confidential. It is also missing the novel’s dark, twisted revelations, and the oppressive corruption that is seemingly the glue that holds the city together. Disappointingly, the final act falls back on the hoary old chestnut of the murderer blabbing at great length about what they did and why they did it, and tips dangerously close to unintentional comedy with an almost hysterical performance by a cast member who will remain unnamed for obvious reasons.

The principal cast members are all good to excellent, but the most indelible performance comes from Mia Kirshner, who appears as the murdered Elizabeth Short in black and white film clips of the character’s auditions for a futile and ultimately doomed shot at Hollywood fame. In those brief appearances, she projects the melancholy of a heart burdened with sadness and abuse and laden with the belief that her life will never get any better. Kirshner single-handedly makes Bleichert and Blanchard’s obsession with capturing Short’s murderer believable.

Beautifully shot by Vilmos Zsigmond, The Black Dahlia is photographed in a soft brown colour palette that captures the sepia-tinged look of a bygone era of urban crime and punishment. Director Brian DePalma is capable of some astonishing set-pieces--the train station sequences from The Untouchables and Carlito’s Way are obvious examples--but here his direction almost completely lacks the visual panache he is famous for. A stairway confrontation and murder has nail-biting potential but lacks suspense, though the violent payoff is classic DePalma. Overall, it seems as though DePalma is holding back when he should be making us beg for it then giving it to us. This is muted DePalma and muffled Ellroy. What the film really needs is both of these guys, full strength.

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Directed by Brian De Palma
Written by Josh Friedman, based on the novel by James Ellroy

Starring:
Josh Hartnett....Ofcr. Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert
Scarlett Johansson....Kay Lake
Aaron Eckhart....Sgt. Leland "Lee" Blanchard
Hilary Swank....Madeleine Linscott
Mia Kirshner....Elizabeth Short
Mike Starr....Russ Millard
Fiona Shaw....Ramona Linscott