THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

DePalma's often-demonstrated ability to turn on and then unnerve movie audiences through the overt sexual pleasure of his screen women, followed by their brutal killing or humiliation, absolutely seemed to make him the right director to bring James Ellroy's noir-stuffed novel to the screen. But the result of the union, though glossy and entertaining at times, is hamstrung by the convoluted plot and further hampered by bad casting.

The amazing L.A. Confidential, also based on an Ellroy noir-themed novel, is right up there with Chinatown as one of the great Los Angeles-based crime films and I had high hopes for The Black Dahlia, which promised similar dazzling results. But high expectations have resulted in something that is well, not so noir.

The plot revolves around two boxer-cops: Bucky Bleichert ( the monotone-voiced Josh Hartnett ) , who is dubbed 'Mr. Ice,' and hothead Lee Blanchard ( Aaron Eckhart ) , who is dubbed 'Mr. Fire.' After a public boxing match for the police department done as a publicity stunt, these two are given carte blanche and both go for the glamour and prestige of becoming detectives. In the midst of this is Blanchard's girlfriend, blond coquette Kay Lake ( Scarlett Johansson ) , who wields a cigarette holder like a baton twirler and wears tight angora sweaters. Each night the boys come home to the swanky digs shared by Lake and Blanchard while Bleichert yearns for Lake, who yearns right back. We are given a montage of the three sharing the good life ( expertly scored by Mark Isham as is the rest of the picture ) , though at one point the trio inexplicably sits in a theater in 1946 and watch Lon Chaney in a silent movie, The Man Who Laughed. In the clip, Chaney plays a character who's been disfigured and left with a permanent smile. This strange little segment sticks out like a sore thumb and announces the arrival of the plot's main course. This is the discovery of the horribly defiled, sawed-in-half body of Elizabeth Short ( Mia Kirshner ) , whose mouth is also slashed from end to end. ( The crane shot that announces the discovery of the body is the movie's most affecting shot. )

Not long after, Bleichert, following a lead that the murder victim liked the ladies, heads to the lesbian bars to the tune of Love for Sale, sung by k.d. lang. As the dykes mill about in the swanky clubs, we suddenly see lang, in tuxedo drag fronting a group of chorus girls, belting out the number. Though enjoyable, the sight of the puffy-faced lang is so at odds with the '40s conventions around her that one is again thrown out of the picture. Then in walks Hilary Swank as Madeleine Linscott, the slutty bad-girl socialite ( a '40s version of Paris Hilton ) from a rich family, and Bleichert falls hard for the vixen. A dinner scene with the eccentric Linscotts at the family mansion follows that's almost as camp as the one in The Rocky Horror Picture Show ( with Fiona Shaw taking the Over the Top acting award of the year as the mother ) . But the crazy family at least gives you something more enticing than the dull leads offer.

A lot more plot and various revelations that are telegraphed well in advance follow. Police corruption, naturally, plays a big part in the shenanigans but there is none of the alternate repulsion/fascination and none of the juiciness that was so integral to L.A. Confidential. Though Eckhart has his moments, eventually he goes full tilt, acting in overdrive. Playing the same type of character in Confidential, Russell Crowe was lethal but compassionate. Against Eckhart we get the bulked-up but still wet-eyed Hartnett ( he cries three times this time out ) in place of the cool- as-ice Guy Pearce and the bland, open-mouthed ( close your DAMN MOUTH! ) Johansson in place of the sultry yet sad Kim Basinger. And while the entrance of the flinty Swank momentarily galvanizes the picture, she's not exactly the sexual furnace she keeps claiming to be—especially when repeatedly tossing off lines like, 'You want to fuck me now don't you?' Um, no.

Worse, for a director who has put some of the most visually beautiful and violent murders on the screen ( like the twirling knives in Carrie, the gleaming razor in Dressed to Kill and the piano wire in Blow Out ) , DePalma skips over his chance at staging the infamous ( and unsolved ) crime, Hollywood's own Jack the Ripper-style murder. When the killing is finally shown, near the conclusion of the picture, it's as a flashback, almost as an aside. Nor does DePalma further explore the potential offered by the tantalizing glimpses we see of Short in screen tests dressed in black ( hence her nickname ) , in which his own voice is heard as the irritable director barking commands at the desperate-to-please starlet. Was the hesitation because Short was a real person?

After the anticipation of the opening scenes wears off, the rest of The Black Dahlia, shot mostly in drained sepia tones ( instead of the rich, blood red tones that the material cries out for ) bumps and grinds along but never really congeals. There is none of the passionate, operatic fire that DePalma has been noted for in the past and, ironically, given the lurid material tossed in his lap—and his own lurid cinematic resume—he has made perhaps the most restrained example of film noir in the genre's history.

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