Despite all the early Oscar hype, The Black Dahlia is a pale imitation of its film noir predecessors. Even with an interesting performance from two-time Academy Award winner Hillary Swank, the actors could not get past the horribly convoluted script, confusing editing, and overall bad directorial decisions by Brian de Palma.
Aesthetically, the characters, sets, and cinematography create the right atmosphere for this crime drama. However, the director and cast seem to get too caught up in their ambitions for the movie to take care of the first order of business--telling the story.
The first three quarters of the movie tries to develop the characters of do-gooder detective Bucky (Josh Hartnett), his corrupt partner Lee (Aaron Eckhart), former prostitute turned homemaker Kay (Scarlett Johansson), and bed-hopping trust fund baby Madeleine (Hillary Swank). Unfortunately, the lackluster performances of Hartnett and Johansson give the audience little reason to care what happens to them, while the character of Lee is so confusing it is easy to write him off, also. As always, Hillary Swank does not mind getting gritty with her hard-to-like character, but even her solid performance is lost in the needlessly elaborate entanglement that this movie becomes.
The final quarter of the movie reveals the "whodunit" stage. Sadly, it is done so quickly and confusingly that it is impossible to follow or care. All in all, this movie does not live up to the widely successful Scarface or L.A. Confidential and becomes another typical Josh Hartnett film, perhaps not in genre, but certainly in execution.
Movies Are Life. ~ K
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