Movie Review: The Black Dahlia

The Black Dahlia

It's difficult not to find any story of the so-called "Black Dahlia" intriguing. Despite knowing the horrific murder of wannabe actress Elizabeth Short occurred some 50 years ago (in January of 1947), the gruesomeness of the killing and the cruel fact that it has remained unsolved all these years only lend to the magnetism of the story. When you combine that kind of real-life detail with a cast like the 2006 movie happens to have, well, it had to be worth seeing. Didn't it?

Los Angeles cop Dwight "Buckey" Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) is a former light-heavyweight boxer (known as "Ice," his record is impressive). The police force is also fortunate to have another former boxer on its roster (called "Fire," his record as a heavyweight was nothing to sneeze at, either). Sergeant Leland "Lee" Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart) and Officer Bleichart are talked into a promotional fight as "Fire" and "Ice" to help make money for an ongoing campaign benefiting law enforcement. After the well publicized fight, the two end up as partners.

As well as they get along on the job, Buckey and Lee also become close in their personal lives. One factor that holds the two together happens to be their mutual regard — and love — for the beautiful Kay Lake (Scarlett Johansson). But all of their professional successes and their domestic tranquility is abruptly interrupted by the murder of aspiring actress, Elizabeth Short (Mia Kirshner).

Lee is almost instantly obsessed by the "Black Dahlia" killing, and he refuses to listen to Buckey as he calmly notes it's not their case. With a few political machinations behind the scenes, Lee manages to make it their case, at least in part. Buckey isn't happy about the reassignment — he thinks he and his partner should continue their focus on their own pre-existing and ongoing investigation into another case — but he dutifully does his job.

While Lee immerses himself in reports and bits and pieces of evidence, Buckey starts tracing Short's presumed footsteps. He looks for her friends and her usual haunts, and when he visits each, he beings to learn more about the dead girl. But the more he learns, the more mysterious the matter becomes. And when he runs into local heiress Madeleine Linscott (Hilary Swank), the few additional answers he gets results in a flood of other questions.

Eventually, Buckey discovers Madeleine is everything she says and then some, but he's also distracted by Kay's anguish over Lee's dedication to the Black Dahlia case. Worse, Kay fears Buckey is headed down the same road.

The Black Dahlia is beautifully filmed. The sets and the costuming are lovely, and the fact that the film has a sepia undertone to it makes the movie look as if it, too, comes directly from the 1940's. Even the acting is very much of an older style with its melodrama, unnatural breaks between lines more often than not, and overly-crisp edits. Unfortunately, the look of The Black Dahlia is all that there really is to recommend it.

Far too much time is dedicated to Buckey and Lee, how they meet, and the ramp-up to their boxing match. The pair's relationship with Kay is unreal at best. And even when the titular murder is finally committed, there's strangely little emotion or curiosity evoked as a result. Side plots abound, and none are given adequate shrift (at least one also seems to have no bearing on much of anything despite being tied together with the others at the end); the primary plot also seems only skin deep.

I understand that the acting here is deliberately in the style of another time, but it still seems wooden and two-dimensional at best. Josh Hartnett has never been particularly emotive, but the direction here steals what little charisma he has and leaves him appearing to be all but a mannequin. Even in scenes that should be emotional, he's not. Aaron Eckhart is far better than this movie lets him be, and the same is true for Scarlett Johansson. Meanwhile, the brilliant Hilary Swank is horribly miscast here, not least because her character is supposed to bear a strong resemblance to Elizabeth Short and doesn't.

Even the supporting cast suffers somewhat here. John Kavanagh, who is cast as the Linscott patriarch, has a Scottish accent that comes and goes. Fiona Shaw, who plays Madeleine's mother, Ramona, is good, but the excessive melodrama of her character is laugh-inducing rather than lifting the audience to new levels of fear or suspense. Mia Kirshner, who does a compelling job of portraying a pretty girl who is a pretty bad actress, is the only one who manages to escape the film with her reputation intact.

The script and the accompanying edits make most scenes almost independent of those coming before and after, and as a result, the story jumps around in a disconcerting fashion. Much is made of various small clues, but the surprises are few and far between. The mysteries aren't terribly mysterious, and some seem utterly beside the point. Meanwhile, The Black Dahlia is less about Hollywood's most infamous murder than it is about fictional characters written around her death and who — the result again of the script — are far, far less interesting.

If you're interested in seeing some truly lovely examples of film sets and cinematography, The Black Dahlia might be worth a look. But if you're headed to the theatre to see a movie you'll enjoy, don't bother.

POLITICAL NOTES: There are instances in The Black Dahlia where the police very much take matters into their own hands. They ignore the Fourth Amendment in its entirety. They dispense justice — sometimes extreme — as it suits them personally. They hide various and sundry crimes from each other and from law enforcement in general. And they wheel and deal with politicians and mobsters (but I repeat myself) behind the scenes. While this may or may not be an accurate portrayal of how things were in Los Angeles in the 1940's, I can't fail to take note of the casual depiction of such things. The more the general public sees movies like this (not to mention the ubiquitous Law and Order programs on television), the more they begin to consider such direct dispensations of justice to be an okay thing. And it isn't.

FAMILY SUITABILITY: The Black Dahlia is rated R for "strong violence, some grisly images, sexual content and language." While I've certainly seen worse, I do believe the R rating is warranted here. In addition to the violence, there is also some minimal nudity, and though the most grisly images are likely to be in your imagination, there are a few flashes of a corpse that are none too pretty. If you must see this film — and again, I'd recommend it only to those interested in the artistry of the production — I'd keep the kids under 16 or so out of the theatre.