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THE BLACK DAHLIA (2006) Starring Aaron Eckhart, Josh Hartnett, Mia Kirshner, Hilary Swank, Scarlett Johansson, Rose McGowan, Mike Starr, Gregg Henry, Pepe Serna, William Finley.

Directed by Brian De Palma.

Running time: 121 minutes.

Rating: R

Review By Jason Daniel Baker.

22 year-old aspiring actress Elizabeth Short was the victim of a grisly rape/murder in 1947 and a special squad of Los Angeles police detectives was put on the case. The legendary case finally gets the film treatment though if you know the details of the murder you know why it has not been made into a movie before.

Homely Hillary Swank as a femme fatale?!!! Co-starring Josh Hartnett and Aaron Eckhart...GEEZ!!! I hadn't even seen the trailers and I already hated this movie. Swank and Eckhart previously co-starred in THE CORE an obscenely preposterous movie which they were both terrible in. Why split a winning combination, right?

You just had to know that Hollywood's lack of new ideas would eventually result in it's taking inspiration from the culture immediatley surrounding the motion picture industry. This is another film inspired by the lives of people the industry has chewed up and spit out.

If you know the real case this is based on you would know the kind of movie that would result would not exactly be family viewing. That said this flick hardly gives a tasteful telling of the Black Dahlia legend. In fact it has a sleazy/seedy feel to it that made my skin crawl. There are not really any ways of toning down the darker elements of this movie that would make it tasteful. It's sinister seediness is it's hook.

As I have said before Hollywood loves exposing itself especially when the real people involved are dead. Like THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, SUNSET BOULEVARD, L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, and the recently released HOLLYWOODLAND Hollywood again explores it's dark side with a kind of decadent pride. This whole "aren't we interesting?" approach can be tiresome like I have often said. Here, it very much is in addition to being tawdry and utterly tasteless.

The people that made this tried too hard to make a blockbuster/masterpiece in the vein of HOLLYWOOD CONFIDENTIAL hence this one gets released just as the summer movie season is ending and Oscar season (that time of the year when Academy voters will actually be able to still remember movies and consider them for Oscar consideration in January) is beginning. That said I don't this one will get much consideration at Oscar time even though this is turning out to be a very poor year for movies.

We have been led to believe from Aaron Eckhart's turn as the personification of white collar evil in 1997's IN THE COMPANY OF MEN that he is capable of a kind of subtle greatness in the right role. I'm still waiting to see it. It definitley is not in evidence here.

As for Josh Hartnett, what can really be said? He is often accused of being wooden. In this one he is like solid granite. With he and Eckhart and Hilary Swank headlining this much of the rest of the cast (and it is a good cast otherwise) are wasted.

I do credit the production team behind this and director Brian De Palma. This is, at times a very beautiful movie to look at but not nice enough to ignore where it comes up short in terms of acting, character development and plot. See HOLLYWOODLAND instead.

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