Golden hues turn flat-out angelic when they light up Johansson, though they also project a shadow behind her that looks like the outline of those too close to ground zero of a nuclear strike. The son of a Kraut immigrant knows before his superior officers come to him to fix an exhibition match that he has to use to his all-American partner and friend. That same man feels an empathy for the people of color terrorized by a local killer, but the partner quickly transfers the pair of them to follow up on this mysteriously and gruesomely mangled white girl. The partner has an obsessive need to rescue or avenge women, but he views them as damaged goods afterward; his…

I'm so glad I had read the novel a few months before I saw this.
Brian de Palma's film follows James Ellroy's labyrinthine but logical plot very closely, but it feels likes a much longer and clearer film was butchered like poor Elizabeth Short.

Even Josh Hartnett's world-wearily laconic Bladerunner-esque voiceover doesn't lend any clarity. In fact, I just wanted to give him a Strepsil and a hot toddy. One just about can get a vague measure of what is going on, but there are too many jumps of logic to get a clear bead on characters' motivations and the more subtle plot developments. For instance, there isn't any gradual slide of Aaron Eckhart's Lee Blanchard into his obsession with…

What the hell?! I don't get you, Brian De Palma. How do you keep producing tosh and, just when people are about to give up on you, you produce genius films? I mean, this is the guy who did the first 'Mission: Impossible' (that I still think is the best), 'Snake Eyes', 'Scarface', 'The Untouchables', etc.) and still produce shlock like this, 'Mission To Mars' and 'Bonfire Of The Vanities'.

Everyone in this film is horribly miscast. You would think Scarlett would make a great saucy dame. And she is, until the seduction scene. She appears in a dressing gown, to show a bit of cleavage, and granny pants. I know its the '40s, but please, if she is not…

I'm so glad I had read the novel a few months before I saw this.
Brian de Palma's film follows James Ellroy's labyrinthine but logical plot very closely, but it feels likes a much longer and clearer film was butchered like poor Elizabeth Short.

Even Josh Hartnett's world-wearily laconic Bladerunner-esque voiceover doesn't lend any clarity. In fact, I just wanted to give him a Strepsil and a hot toddy. One just about can get a vague measure of what is going on, but there are too many jumps of logic to get a clear bead on characters' motivations and the more subtle plot developments. For instance, there isn't any gradual slide of Aaron Eckhart's Lee Blanchard into his obsession with…

There was something brewing here, but it didn't come together. It's a fictionalized version of the famous unsolved crime, based on the novel by James Ellroy. Josh Hartnett and Aaron Eckhart play a couple of boxers-turned LA cops who take the case of Elizabeth Short's infamous, grisly homicide. Brian De Palma directs, although with only occasional bursts of visual flair - at least, compared to what he usually brings. It's a film that would be very well represented by the symbol of a spectrum - in many ways it's all over the map. You can find subplots that range from interesting to inscrutable, acting that's wooden, competent, or hammy, and visual ideas that seem to shift as the movie goes…

Golden hues turn flat-out angelic when they light up Johansson, though they also project a shadow behind her that looks like the outline of those too close to ground zero of a nuclear strike. The son of a Kraut immigrant knows before his superior officers come to him to fix an exhibition match that he has to use to his all-American partner and friend. That same man feels an empathy for the people of color terrorized by a local killer, but the partner quickly transfers the pair of them to follow up on this mysteriously and gruesomely mangled white girl. The partner has an obsessive need to rescue or avenge women, but he views them as damaged goods afterward; his…

Whenever I watch L.A. Confidential, I am soon hit with a craving to watch The Black Dahlia. Like L.A. Confidential, Brian De Palma’s 2006 film is incredibly ambitious, but while Curtis Hanson’s film is a resounding success, The Black Dahlia barely scrapes by. Josh Hartnett and Aaron Eckhart star as detectives investigating the gruesome murder of young Hollywood starlet Elizabeth Short. Their investigation leads them on a path that stretches from the seedy underbelly of L.A. to one of the city’s most prominent families.

Based on James Ellroy’s novel, the film has a rich source material, and De Palma’s film – for the most part – really delves into it. Yet, I cannot help but feel De Palma plays things…