The Black Dahlia
2006
*½
Director: Brian De Palma
Cast: Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Mia Kirshner
The brutal and unsolved Black Dahlia murder in 1947 has haunted and captivated people for decades. This fictional film noir needs just two hours to solve the case and make a dog's dinner of it. The murder is used as a backdrop to tell a highly uninteresting story of two pugilistic cops and two femme fatales. The film captures the period beautifully but gets nothing else right. The casting is dead wrong, the performances are dreadful and the script is incoherent. Based on James Ellroy's novel.
