C-

Meh. Beyond Mia Kirshner's good supporting performance and a random intriguing scene, this campy melodrama is another misfire courtesy of going-downhill-fast Brian De Palma. I was especially disappointed by Scarlett Johansson, one of my favorite young actresses. She seemed so lost in her role and gives the worst performance of her career thus far (though the camera does, of course, still love her).

I would've appreciated more investigation into Elizabeth Short's brutal murder and less on LAPD corruption in the '40s (material covered better in L.A. Confidential). This was very mediocre and every shred of Oscar buzz had evaporated by the tenth unintentional laugh (k.d. Lang! in a man's suit! in a lesbian club! surrounded by half-naked dancers!). Wait for DVD, if you must see it at all.

Not what I expected at all.

C-

Yeeeah, I dont think im in a rush to see this anymore.

One of the few times I was completely blindsided by a movie.

It's just not good. And I saw Mission To Mars opening day.

I too felt blindsided by this movie. In my opinion, it was misadvertised by Universal Pictures. From the trailer, I expected an intense murder mystery dealing with the Elizabeth Short crime, including the resulting public fascination and the detectives' obsession with solving it. The former was never touched on, beyond a few fleeting shots of bold newspaper headlines. And the latter, though present, didn't even feel very important (perhaps because Aaron Eckhart's character's mental descent happened mostly off-screen and out of mind).

To be honest, I'm not even sure what I exactly saw! Every scene felt separate from its predecessor (the word disjointed comes to mind). In the end, I s'pose, the main point was: There's an eccentric family in Los Angeles. They might have a depraved secret. Not enough to keep me intrigued throughout this campy, convoluted mess of a movie.

The mother was borrowed from an unreleased John Water film noir apparently.

I would be embarrased if I was one of the headliners. Scarlett looked fantastic, but she was awful. Aaron, Josh, Hilary, the same problem.

My C- is beginning to look generous. But the film looks and sounds great. And I'm a sucker for that time period.

This seems to be the year of the big director disappointments. Following Mann and Shyamalan, De Palma can now be added to that list. While I definitely liked it, The Black Dahlia comes up a little short for a couple of reasons. The narrative is at times convoluted (most of Lee's character and motivations) and at others outrageous (Madeleine's family and revelations, though some of it was admittedly kind of funny), and the forced melodrama and love triangle (of which most of the blame belongs to Scarlett for a pretty embarassing turn). At times it seemed like a bunch of lightweights playing around with heavy material, or perhaps it was actually really light material trying to come off as heavy. I don't know. I was really surprised with Hartnett though. The film is on his shoulders and he did an impressive job of keeping me involved in the story. Unfortunately the lovely Ms. Johansson looked out of her element attempting that regal posturing and never managed to emote convincingly. Eckhart is kind of a throwaway, as most of his character is revealed through Dwight's revelations. The black and white sequences with Kirshner were great and I felt they did enough to explore her circumstances and the case, but I was still a little bothered by the silly manner in which it came together at the end. Can I assume that that whole crazy family was a fabrication by Ellroy, or is there some truth to any of it?

Thankfully the film is very well directed by De Palma, giving us much to marvel at including a magnificent crane shot that pulls up over a three story building to reveal the corpse in the field and then proceeds to manuever back around to street level. Another great sequence takes place in a stairwell and ends in a truly horrifying manner. All other technicals are well accomplished; some nice art direction and set design (the rundown movie set), appropriate noirish music by Mark Isham and well done cinematography.

B-

The marketing sure fooled me. This film is a mess. Jumps from story to story, none of them interesting. I felt so lost most of the time. Most of the actors were just blah, aside from Mia Kirshner who was wonderful with what little scenes she got. I don't get why there was so little about the actual Black Dahlia murder. It was all about Josh Hartnett and... him doing random things. About 80% of the film could have been cut and it would have made no difference. Ugh, just a mess.

D

I suddenly lost interest.

I am almost depressed over how disappointing this movie was. I'm a big fan of Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Aaron Eckhart, and Hilary Swank and when I saw the trailer for this film, I just couldn't see how it could turn out bad. I was *so* sure this would be a kick-ass thriller and return to Brian De Palma to top form. And it ended up being such a damn mess. Very, very disappointing.

Hopefully Scorsese, Nolan, and Coppola fare better in October with their big movies.

This is pretty depressing. I was planning to see this on Sunday. Unlikely now.

Damn me for expected much from De Palma. Damn, damn, damn. Guess I'll be seeing Hollywoodland instead.

Dang.

It wasn't that bad...but it wasn't that great either. Very hard to follow, flimsy plot and not anywhere near as good as I was hoping. The cast was solid but the story itself was not only hard to follow and confusing but it got too bogged down to really make sense in the end. B-

Looks like I'll be in the minority here, but I really enjoyed the film. It's not vintage De Palma, but it sure as hell isn't "Mission to Mars" De Palma. I liked how the story unraveled and ended up. I am not saying the story is perfect -- it's actually a little too muddled and hard to follow, but it works. I also enjoyed the somewhat over the top acting (The scene at the dinner table is somewhat out of place, but it somehow works). It was also fun seeing some of De Palma's vintage camera angles (Close up on Eckhart with Hartnett in the stairwell.

I have to give it an A. I had a lot of fun watching this. It seemed that not too many other people did (There were at least four walk-outs, although it was after watching a head get split open somewhat) but I really liked this.

Moves slowly but ultimately has enough intriguing parts to recommend. I defintely would have liked far more focus on the Short case as the other stuff was boring. Hartnett was okay, but I've always found him to be kind of a boring actor. Eckhart was awful, overacting in every scene. Swank was okay, Johansson did indeed look lost. I found the whole familial element hilarious, especially the performances by said family. The mother was a hoot. Kirshner was very good in her limited screen time and darn attractive to boot. How anyone could think she and Swank look anything alike is dumbfounding as Kirshner is far more attractive.

Judging from the majority of the comments here, I'd say most of you fall into one of these three categories....

01. Not big De Palma fans to begin with
02. Not familiar with (or don't like) De Palma's "autuer" work
03. Only familiar with (or just like) his director-for-hire work

Yeah, Universal's marketing campaign was misleading. But anyone who knows De Palma should have known what to expect here. It's vintage De Palma, through and through. It's campy, trashy, melodramatic, hilarious, stylish, and masterfully directed... and it's the best film of the year.

****/****

Loved it.

7.8/10. A-

Carrie, Fury, Blow Out, along with MI, Untouchables, and Snake Eyes are some of my favourite films.

I guess I'm in category 04. Huge De Palma fan, thought Black Dahlia was a mess.

Maybe it works as a high camp black comedy....I don't know.

I'd say that's exactly how it works, and how it was intended to work.

De Palma's films have always had a great sense of humor.

The Black Dahlia reminded me most of -- tonally speaking at last -- Dressed to Kill and Body Double. Just so happen to be my two favorite De Palma films (well, now it's The Black Dahlia).

good job makeshift, now i have to spend another seven and half bucks. it's amazing how fast i can go from "desperately looking forward" to "meh, i'll wait for dvd" and back.

If you go in expecting your typical, cliche, generic "intense murder mystery" that the ads have been shilling, you'll be majorly disappointed like the majority of folks. It's really operating on an entirely different level. I hope you enjoy it, though.

BTW, how freakin' fantastic were those two show-stopping set pieces -- the stairway sequence and the POV dinner sequence. Those two segments are worth the price of admission alone.

It won't happen, but De Palma deserves a Best Director nomination.

I lost interest last night and I'm suddenly interested again.

I've been dying to see this, though. I think I should just go for it.

Yeah, I agree with makeshift, those two scenes were fantastic.

Perhaps, if I could understand the ending a bit better, my opinions would shift, but I just sort of lost track towards the end.

indeed.

makeshift, you suck

this has been an emotional rollercoaster. makeshift wins. he is the ultimate authority after i loved, loved, loved miami vice.