"The Black Dahlia" Sucked

[swerb]

Once again, I foolishly inflated my expectations for this film.

I had good reason too though.

Brian DePalma directed, he of "Scarface", "The Untouchables", "Carlito's Way", and the first "Mission Impossible" (which was good, they've all sucked since).

Cast included Scarlett Johannson, Aaron Eckhart (who was great in "Thank You For Smoking"), and Hillary Swank. Josh Hartnett is awful IMO, but I actually liked his last role, in "Lucky Number Slevin".

And the movie was about one of California's most infamous unsolved murders ever, that of a famous actress in the 1940's.

Sounds like a recipe for a good film, right?

Wrong.

It was terrible.

The movie was just poorly put together. It's one of those films that you want to turn off while watching, but refrain, thinking better things have to be coming. Only to be left disappointed at the end. The film tries to follow along the same lines of the excellent 1997 film noir "L.A. Confidential", but fails miserably.

The main plot line is confusing, and not well sustained. You learn little of The Dahlia herself, and there are so many meaningless and unentertaining subplots interjected into the film, you're left with a bumbled mess. The 1st 45 minutes have absolutely nothing to do with the last 75 minutes of the film, other than poorly attempting to build up the relationship between Eckhart and Hartnett (LA partner homiscide cops). The movie has no flow.

The acting is shaky as well. Eckhart was good, again. Hartnett was a train wreck. That pretty boy trying to pull off a 1940 LA homiscide cop is laughable. Swank, not one of her better roles. The acting and the accent both seemed forced. She looked good in the film though. Scarlett was gorgeous as always, but it appears they forced her into this role, and it came off plasticky. Not her best work.

Moral of the story: When Mitch has bad vibes, trust him.

[furls]

Swerb,

Ill refer you to my original comments on the film, that I posted here:

viewtopic.php?t=1260

I warned you too, but you chose not to heed it and you learned the hard way.

My comments for those that are to lazy to click a link:

Quote:
I have the Black Dahlia coming via Netflix, again going against Mitch's urging.

I'll be honest though, I can only dislike a movie with Scarlett Johannson in it so much.


This movie is sooo bad I actually shut it off in mid movie. It takes a lot for me to do that, but I did. Scarlett Johannson or not, it is a miserable, miserable movie.

THe movie is shot in that old police story, 1940s style, and the story is just not interesting. The movie was so slow that even after 45 minutes, I felt that I had so little emotionally invested in the movie that it was not worth watching.

By all means you can try it out; hell the ending may be fantastic, but I couldn't tell you. Yes, it was that bad.

[swerb]

Furls, it was already en route from Netflix when I read that.

So I glossed around it, and prayed you were wrong.

You weren't.