De Palma has made a bizarre, baffling and at times flat-out bad movie. But at least it's rarely boring.
Comment
09/14/06
The Black Dahlia (2006)
34
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:179
Fresh:61
Rotten:118
Average Rating:4.9/10
Consensus: Though this ambitious noir crime-drama captures the atmosphere of its era, it suffers from subpar performances, a convoluted story, and the inevitable comparisons to other, more successful films of its genre.
Runtime: 2 hrs 2 mins
Genre: Dramas
US Box Office: $22,518,325
Synopsis: Based on the novel by James Ellroy, Brian De Palma's THE BLACK DAHLIA stars Josh Hartnett and Aaron Eckhart as a pair of LAPD detectives assigned to the most notorious murder in Hollywood history.... [More]
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Hilary Swank, Aaron Eckhart
Director: Brian De Palma
Reviews for The Black Dahlia
141 - 160 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
The early Oscar buzz is dead on arrival. You'll be laughing by the end, and not in a good way
09/14/06
This is so laughable it must be intended as camp. I was disappointed this wasn't a serious examination of the real Black Dahlia case. Oh, well, sometimes you don't get what you pay for and it's a pleasant surprise.
09/14/06
This one had a sense of deja vu, and borrowed an ending too similar to Mickey Spillane's "I the Jury".
09/14/06
Unless you're familiar with the source material, following the intricacies of the Black Dahlia plot can be a frustrating experience and one that all but requires a detailed set of notes in order to keep up with the key players.
09/14/06
It is the style, stupid- the dialogue, the gloominess, the shadows, the doomed destiny that prevails over everything. This is right in line with these noir ideals, but tells the story with bravura and a technical prowess not available in the 1940s.
09/14/06
It slides from pulp classic to guilty pleasure to cautionary example to full-bore train wreck.
09/14/06
it seems time to stop making excuses for the man -- Brian de Palma has become one very bad director.
09/14/06
Most Brian De Palma movies, as abhorrent as they are, have an ironic sense of purity. 'The Black Dahlia' is a jumbled mess.
09/14/06
The best you can say about The Black Dahlia: For people who like this kind of thing, this is the kind of thing they will like.
09/14/06
The Black Dahlia, set in the 1940s, exists to make L.A. Confidential look like God's gift to noir by comparison.
09/14/06
There are some virtuoso moments (the discovery of the mutilated corpse is extremely well done and blessedly ungraphic), but overall the result is much less than prime De Palma.
09/14/06
Not quite as good as the film made from another Ellroy novel, L.A. Confidential, The Black Dahlia is a stylish noir in the same vein, with rat-a-tat-tat hipster dialogue, tough guys, hoods, dirty cops, gangsters and molls.
09/14/06
There's more moral weight in one paragraph of James Ellroy's somber 1987 novel The Black Dahlia than in all 121 minutes of Brian De Palma's florid, sprawling, self-satisfied film version.
09/14/06
If you’ve heard anything about this movie, from the floating film festival persiflage to the test and press screening whispers, you know one thing: it climaxes strangely.
09/14/06
Excessive exposition, subplots, and secondary characters distract from the title story about the barbaric 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short, a striving 22-year-old actress at odds with the treacherous streets of Los Angeles.
09/14/06
De Plama losses control of the tone as the story and its characters spin wildly over the top.
09/14/06
When you need persistence and passion in a role, Josh Hartnett is not your man.
09/14/06
A film as vivid, outrageous and thrilling as Hollywood itself.
09/14/06
Such a baroque, incoherent mess it fails to please as a period piece or a murder mystery.
09/14/06
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