The Black Dahlia - Reviews Thread

[Super_Ludacris]

Seems to be slated here in the states but in Europe it's been getting good reviews. And I agree with the Euros on this one. Its actually to me one of the better films to come out this year. It's cinematography is great with a throwback to 40's and 50's Hollywood and the story is gripping enough. Josh Harnett I think did a decent job but of course had someone else been cast in the lead it probably would have elevated the movie a bit more but having said that he did a good effort in the lead and at least he tries. Scarlett was a bit understated and I'm starting to wonder what standards people hold with various actresss. Hilary Swank was great and so was Aaron Eckhart and Mia Kirshner was ok in her typecast toutured lesbian chick role.
All in all not a bad film, certainly not Depalma's best like some critics say but not his worst like others have said either.
7.5/10

 

[DACrowe]

What is DePalma's worst then? I'd argue it was. And Kirshner gave the only convincing performance in the whole movie I thought. People wanted LA Confidential and got a poorer attempt at what Sin City succeeded at. Hollywoodland was much better too though.

 

[skorponok]

Just saw it...I hadn't read any reviews of it and didn't know it was getting this kind of flack...

Unfortunately, I thought it was horrible...and my god was it campy...


Hollywoodland > this

 

[Joker]

how was it campy at all? it was a hardboiled detective story, I saw no camp at all...

 

[Charlie No-One]

I thought that some of the nior style shots they attempted were really cool in some parts, and very silly in others. I think the whole movie would have worked better in black and white if they wanted to go the nior style. The mother of Swank was bizzare. Was she drunk, schizo, high? Couldn't tell, but it was just too over the top. I just thought that movie was terrible.

3/10

 

[DACrowe]

It was campy because it was over the top. It was not hard boiled. ****, Sin City was more hardboiled than this. You must be mistaking this for LA Confidential or Key Largo or Maltese Falcon, Double Idemity, The Big Sleep, etc.

Okay it was campy in that it was all more of a send up than an homage to film noir. It was treated as a dark comedy almost in some scenes (DePalma did say making it that it was a comic opera). Like the beginning with how stilted all the performances are in a very self-aware "we're making a film noir movie" no one is more evident at this than Scarlett Johansson. Or the way everyone overreacts, like when the two detectives make a collar they smile real big at each other. The ibzzare close ups on the heads of the LAPD to make it obviously seem like a parody.

Swank's entire performacne was a ridicule of the femme fatale image with her Hepburn accent and terrible movements. The scenes with the family were obviously a condemnmation of the rich and their eccentrcies that go unchecked, and while it may be like that in the book it wasn't played for laughs. The mother's entire performance right up 'till her suicide was played as a big joke with a wink-wink nudge-nudge to the audience who couldn't take it seriously. That is why so many people were laughing. The whole ending was just a convluted joke. When Swank says "Now either shoot me or **** me" I thought no one was supposed to not laugh at that.

All of Johansson's scenes like her attempted seduction of Harnett, slaming the door at him, holding both their hands in The Man Who Laughs are played ridiculously over the top to the point of parody. And that is what this movie was, it was a parody and not a very good one either.

 

[JLBats]

Yeah, that's one of the major problems I've been having with recent noir. And believe me, I totally love noir. I breathe it. But Noir was a movement in film history that was entirely natural... it just happened. Nowadays, like everything in our culture, it feels like current noir is processed, overbaked, coated in a thick veil of irony and then spit back out. They're too knowing. They try to hard to be noir.

The best neo-noir just IS. It should feel effortless. It shouldn't have noir PRETENTIONS. Some of the best are even debatable as noir. Chinatown. Taxi Driver. Breathless. Collateral. LA Confidential. Memento. It's noir to the exact amount the subject matter demands it, just as it should be, and it never winks to the camera.

 

[DACrowe]

Yeah, I'd say Chinatown and LA Confidential are noirs to be sure. So The Ususal Suspects for the record and arguably The Untouchables (which I would've been much more happy if Black Dahila ended up like that). I don't know about Taxi Driver or Breathless though. I guess if you used the term neo-noir (which I usually don't) then Heat and Collateral fit in too.

I felt Hollywoodland, while not a great movie, was a quite good one and definetly is part noir, though it does so effortlessly and is also part biopic and part conspiracy theorist too though.

 

[GREEN =w= DAY]

i saw this movie last nite. i thought it was a good movie. very well made and keeps you on the edge of your seat. only thing that i did not understand though, is that why was Aaron Eckhart's character so obssesed with with Elizabeth Short?

 

[*Dark_Phoenix*]

i want to watch the movie, but dont know if its worth the movie going and everything... what do you recomend?

 

[Super_Ludacris]

It's decent not even close to being bad as some people are making it out to be. It's worth checking.

 

[DACrowe]

I would recommend you go see Hollywoodland instead. It was QUITE good as opposed to....well what it was.

 

[nightwing06]

In Short: The trailer was better than the movie

I really enjoyed the first half of the film,establishing a good back story for the characters,and the love triangle(???).A beautiful looking film.Depalma still has a great eye.
But the second hour things just seem to fall apart.
Some critics are saying Swank was horribly cast ,but i though she was great(nice bottom by the way Ms.Swank) until the end when Hartnett confronts her and her "Addams Family" That scene contained some of the worst acting ever.Scarlett Johansson was good here and there and looks great in her sweaters and lingerie but she kind of fades into the background.
Just to many twists in the plot towards the end ,and so many different drawn out endings i started rolling my eyes.
Eckhart was good too but sadly his character fades away too,it would have been interesting to folow his obssession with the murder a bit more.
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