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Movie Review for Black Dahlia, The
Movie Review for
Black Dahlia, The
|
Black Dahlia, The | | |
| Also known as: | |
147 Reviews total.
Release date: 9/15/2006
Run length: 121 mins.
Categories:
Drama
,
Thriller
,
Crime/Gangster
,
Adaptation
Summary:
Elizabeth "Betty" Short, a 22-year-old aspiring actress from the East Coast who wore a delicate flower in her raven hair and became many things to many people--dear friend, beloved sister, estranged daughter, frequent girlfriend and accused prostitute. On January 15, 1947, she was discovered brutally splayed in a vacant lot near Leimert Park in downtown Los Angeles. Enter onto the scene two ex-pugilist police officers, Lee Blanchard and Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert, the poster boys for 1940s LAPD. The new partners' first homicide case starts with a call from their supervisor, Detective Millard, to investigate the slaying of the ambitious silver screen B-lister Betty Short, just as they leave a deadly shootout. Blanchard and Bleichert, like the rest of the fascinated city, become drawn into the lurid world of the Dahlia's L.A. While Blanchard's growing preoccupation with the Dahlia's murder threatens his relationship with girlfriend Kay Lake, Bleichert finds himself irresistibly drawn to the enigmatic Madeleine Linscott, the daughter of one of the city's most prominent families--who just happens to have an unsavory connection (and resemblance) to the Dahlia. Blanchard spins into obsession trying to solve the case, seeing in Betty the chance to redeem himself for letting down the other women in his life that he failed to protect. Bleichert, too, begins to question his own footing as his feelings fluctuate wildly between two disparate dames: the seemingly innocent Kay and the knowingly seductive Madeleine--whose unhinged mother, Ramona, proves to hold more than a passing clue to the mystery. Determined to be famous, destined to be infamous, Betty Short affected more lives dead than she could possibly alive. She dreamed of being photographed for the big screen but wound up the pin-up girl of tabloid autopsy photos.
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
Kamal 'The Diva' Larsuel
of 3BlackChicks Review (7/0)
I can’t say anything really stood out in a positive way.
By
Kevin Carr
of 7M Pictures (7/0)
The Black Dahlia isn't just bad. It's impressively bad. I didn't think they could make a movie th...
By
Rebecca Murray
of About.com (7/0)
Unless you're familiar with the source material, following the intricacies of the Black Dahlia pl...
By
John Wirt
of Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA) (7/0)
The movie jumps overboard during an insane third act that threatens to undercut the accomplished ...
By
Mike McGranaghan
of Aisle Seat (7/0)
The film gets worse the longer it goes on, as Brian De Palma slowly loses confidence in his story...
By
David Germain
of Associated Press (7/0)
This fictionalized tale of two Los Angeles detectives assigned to the gruesome 1940s murder of a ...
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie
of Atlanta Journal-Constitution (4/3)
Slummingly salacious and generally rotten to the core.
By
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie
of Atlanta Journal-Constitution (7/0)
As the plot becomes more convoluted, the tone more overripe and the performances heedlessly over-...
By
Lori Hoffman
of Atlantic City Weekly (7/0)
... Hillary Swank gives a Lauren Bacall edge to her femme fatale ...
By
Marc Savlov
of Austin Chronicle (7/0)
Forty-five minutes in, I was already glancing at my watch and wondering why the only lively actre...
By
Stella Papamichael
of BBC (7/0)
It only works in fits and starts and the grand climax is too Rocky Horror to be true, yet the hea...
By
Wesley Morris
of Boston Globe (7/0)
...woefully short on the sublime.
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
Rob Thomas
of Capital Times (Madison, WI) (7/0)
"The Black Dahlia" is so cavalier about its plot and characters, so palpably uninterested in givi...
By
Stephen Cole
of CBC.ca Arts (7/0)
At no time does the film turn into a satisfying mystery where the audience feels compelled to gue...
By
Michael Phillips
of Chicago Tribune (7/0)
...a semi-hysterical, barely coherent film...
By
Russ Breimeier
of Christianity Today (7/0)
It's unusual to see a movie start off so strongly, only to collapse so badly by the finale. It be...
By
Jules Brenner
of Cinema Signals (7/0)
Too ragged a film translation from the book and the headlines, far from fully satisfying, but a t...
By
Mark Palermo
of Coast (Halifax, Nova Scotia) (7/0)
It meticulously resembles a 60 year-old Hollywood artifact, but with a contemporary cynicism.
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
Cole Smithey
of ColeSmithey.com (7/0)
Excessive exposition, subplots, and secondary characters distract from the title story about the ...
By
Jeffrey M. Anderson
of Combustible Celluloid (7/0)
Delves into a visceral place, slashing through logic and proceeding from a purely physical, lasci...
By
Edward Douglas
of ComingSoon.net (7/0)
A gorgeous, glorious tribute to old Hollywood and crime noir that's only marred by a confounding ...
By
Harvey S. Karten
of Compuserve (7/0)
An appropriately misogynistic piece marred, nay, destroyed, by incomprehensibility.
By
Boo Allen
of Denton Record Chronicle (TX) (7/0)
Luridly entertaining mish-mash
By
Michael Booth
of Denver Post (7/0)
The zoot suits and fedoras look great, but without a script or hard-eyed private detective in sig...
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
Bill Gibron
of DVD Verdict (7/0)
The Black Dahlia is not a black mark on the talent track record of anyone involved. Yet with such...
By
Emanuel Levy
of EmanuelLevy.Com (7/0)
Meticulously mounted with bravura filmmaking that serves well the darkly intriguing, fact-based n...
By
Adam Smith
of Empire Magazine (7/0)
Gorgeously realised, gripping and doused in De Palma's familiar technical wizardry.
By
Owen Gleiberman
of Entertainment Weekly (7/0)
The Black Dahlia isn't a cheat, it's just a misfire...
By
Eric D. Snider
of EricDSnider.com (7/0)
Ambitiously well-made, sometimes laughably trashy, always interesting, and occasionally so odd yo...
By
Boyd van Hoeij
of europeanfilms.net (7/0)
The real case of the Black Dahlia was never solved, and watching this film we understand why: the...
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
Kam Williams
of EURWeb (7/0)
With skeletons flying out of the closet at every turn, this overplotted mess unfolds more like a ...
By
Nathaniel Rogers
of Film Experience (7/0)
Frustrating but fascinating, with moments that refuse to be shrugged off
By
Doris Toumarkine
of Film Journal International (7/0)
A stellar cast of marquee names, coupled with an all-star crew, can't make this entry work.
By
Pete Vonder Haar
of Film Threat (7/0)
To say [Hartnett] lacks charisma or screen presence is like saying Hurricane Katrina caused a few...
By
Chris Barsanti
of filmcritic.com (7/0)
Of the actresses, only Mia Kershner, playing Short herself in some film clips discovered posthumo...
By
Brian Orndorf
of FilmJerk.com (7/0)
De Palma's bliss in depicting the bruise-n-babes era roars at the senses like a 3-D effect, pushi...
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
Edward Havens
of FilmJerk.com (7/0)
Vilmos Zsigmond's lush cinematography alone is almost worth the price of admission, and Jenny Bea...
By
Victoria Alexander
of FilmsInReview.com (7/0)
Not about the horrific murder and lacks erotic appeal. Hartnett cries a lot. De Palma kills the g...
By
Kevin Biggers
of FilmStew.com (7/0)
If you’ve heard anything about this movie, from the floating film festival persiflage to the test...
By
MaryAnn Johanson
of Flick Filosopher (7/0)
He walked into my office like he knew he was trouble. 'Name's Hartnett,' he said. 'I'm looking fo...
By
Rob Vaux
of Flipside Movie Emporium (7/0)
It slides from pulp classic to guilty pleasure to cautionary example to full-bore train wreck.
By
Chuck O'Leary
of FulvueDrive-in.com (7/0)
The Black Dahlia case was already the basis for an excellent, infinitely-better fictionalized fil...
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
Rick Groen
of Globe and Mail (7/0)
No wonder The Black Dahlia has the suffocated tint of a face starved for oxygen -- this isn't fil...
By
Eric Lurio
of Greenwich Village Gazette (7/0)
You can take it off the Oscar list, but is well worth a look regardless.
By
Peter Canavese
of Groucho Reviews (7/0)
As the character drama bogs down in Hartnett and Johansson's maudlin mumbling, De Palma starts to...
By
Kirk Honeycutt
of Hollywood Reporter (7/0)
...the film edges dangerously into camp.
By
Stax
of IGN Movies (7/0)
Unfortunately, rather than being his comeback film, The Black Dahlia is just the latest in a long...
By
Jim Slotek
of Jam! Movies (7/0)
It's a wonderfully shot film that demands its actors show old-movie-star mettle.
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
David Kaplan
of Kaplan vs. Kaplan (7/0)
The writing is bad, and the cast overplays their roles to the point of silliness. The director ha...
By
Jeanne Kaplan
of Kaplan vs. Kaplan (7/0)
With such an accomplished cast assembled, Scarlett Johannson, Hilary Swank and Aaron Eckhart, dir...
By
Andrea Chase
of Killer Movie Reviews (7/0)
There are so many missteps in Brian De Palma's THE BLACK DAHLIA that one hardly knows where to st...
By
Scott Foundas
of L.A. Weekly (7/0)
Swank’s character and her performance are good enough to merit a movie of their own, instead of s...
By
Robert Roten
of Laramie Movie Scope (7/0)
This is one sick puppy of a movie. It is also entertaining in its own way if you don't take it se...
By
Carol Cling
of Las Vegas Review-Journal (7/0)
... there are some mysteries no one can solve. Including, apparently, the one that involves brin...
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
Nick Schager
of Lessons of Darkness (7/0)
Nails the tale's particulars but not its soul.
By
John Larsen
of Light Views (4/3)
Director Brian De Palma's fascination with crime and sexual obsession is the perfect attitude for...
By
Andy Klein
of Los Angeles CityBeat (7/0)
...sits on the screen, mysteriously inert and uninvolving....despite De Palma's always-reliable t...
By
Pete Hammond
of Maxim (7/0)
Too often settles for standard B-movie contrivance, proving to disappointed ticket buyers the tru...
By
Matt Pais
of Metromix.com (7/0)
When you need persistence and passion in a role, Josh Hartnett is not your man.
By
Meg Jones
of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (7/0)
Not quite as good as the film made from another Ellroy novel, L.A. Confidential, The Black Dahlia...
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
Susan Granger
of Modamag.com (7/0)
Plot threads get tangled in a florid web of confusion, and the cast's tawdry, melodramatic antics...
By
Ken Hanke
of Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC) (7/0)
A movie best described as Chinatown on Acid, The Black Dahlia isn't so much neo-noir as it is fun...
By
Kevin A. Ranson
of MovieCrypt.com (7/0)
... ends up being forgettable enough that someone else in the future may still be able to take an...
By
Stuart Klawans
of Nation (7/0)
The Black Dahlia turns out to be something of questionable structural integrity, pieced together ...
By
David Edelstein
of New York Magazine (7/0)
The Black Dahlia is an essay in incoherence. The confusion wouldn’t matter if there were any feel...
By
Brandon Judell
of New York Theatre Wire (7/0)
most fun is the high priestess of British stage, Fiona Shaw, who goes over the top as Madeleine's...
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
Manohla Dargis
of New York Times (7/0)
With the diverting exception of Hilary Swank...the leads are disastrous.
By
Manohla Dargis
of New York Times (7/0)
Brian De Palma drains the life out of James Ellroy's take on the spectacularly cruel 1947 murder ...
By
David Denby
of New Yorker (7/0)
The picture is a kind of fattened goose that’s been stuffed with goose-liver pâté. It’s overrich ...
By
Nick Davis
of Nick's Flick Picks (7/0)
The climax retains its inchoate power, throwing you off balance.... From the glittering heap of a...
By
Michael A. Smith
of Nolan's Pop Culture Review (7/0)
Filled with atmosphere and attitude to spare, "The Black Dahlia" is film noir at it's finest.
By
Frank Swietek
of One Guy's Opinion (7/0)
A stylish but oddly flat exercise in noir conventions, a homage that doesn't so much honor its mo...
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
Nathan Rabin
of Onion AV Club (7/0)
The pairing of Ellroy and De Palma proves a marriage made in hardboiled heaven.
By
Dennis Schwartz
of Ozus' World Movie Reviews (7/0)
There's fodder for a good film in the screaming headline material, but De Palma only gets a whiff...
By
Jeremy C. Fox
of Pajiba (7/0)
The Black Dahlia is a good movie, a finely crafted, tasteful, polished, entertaining, and reasona...
By
Jeanne Aufmuth
of Palo Alto Weekly (7/0)
There's something irresistible about this convoluted puzzler, a bracing who-dunnit-ness that has ...
By
Sean Burns
of Philadelphia Weekly (7/0)
De Palma's typically graceful camerawork glides gorgeously from one plot point to another, but ne...
By
Cynthia Fuchs
of PopMatters (7/0)
Kay is less a character than an image of the Dahlia's opposite (the blond/beige look versus the d...
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
Dawn Taylor
of Portland Tribune (7/0)
It's hard to tell what De Palma wanted to achieve with this film. Whatever it was, what ended up ...
By
Ethan Alter
of Premiere Magazine (7/0)
De Palma has made a bizarre, baffling and at times flat-out bad movie. But at least it's rarely b...
By
James Kendrick
of Q Network Film Desk (7/0)
The Black Dahlia is both a studious new entry to the genre and a schizophrenic parody of it.
By
David N. Butterworth
of rec.arts.movies.reviews (7/0)
A slick but empty period noir. De Palma can do better than this.
By
David Nusair
of Reel Film Reviews (7/0)
De Palma's lamentable decision to reign in his wild directorial flourishes certainly doesn't do t...
By
Pam Grady
of Reel.com (7/0)
It's not the most captivating James Ellroy adaptation ever made, but it's worth a look.
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
Robin Clifford
of Reeling Reviews (7/0)
The Black Dahlia uses many cinematic contrivances that do not help tell the story of who killed E...
By
John P. McCarthy
of ReelTalk Movie Reviews (7/0)
This movie fails to hook early on, so you resist being taken where it wants to go, no matter how ...
By
James Berardinelli
of ReelViews (7/0)
While it's true that many noir thrillers emphasize style over substance, few are as fundamentally...
By
Keith Uhlich
of Reverse Shot (7/0)
Ghost World: Keith Uhlich on The Black Dahlia for Reverse Shot's Brian de Palma symposium.
By
Peter Travers
of Rolling Stone (7/0)
De Palma throws everything at the screen, but almost nothing sticks.
By
Sean Means
of Salt Lake Tribune (7/0)
The noir tension and jolting violence fall apart in the finale.
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
David Elliott
of San Diego Union-Tribune (7/0)
If few people break out laughing, it's because the fun is sordid, and because connecting the plot...
By
Mick LaSalle
of San Francisco Chronicle (7/0)
...with the exception of Aaron Eckhart, De Palma's actors can't live up to the period or the atmo...
By
Sean McBride
of Sean the Movie Guy (7/0)
features amazing production design and a fascinating story at first, the film does eventually fal...
By
William Arnold
of Seattle Post-Intelligencer (7/0)
...it's just not a very good movie.
By
Jeff Shannon
of Seattle Times (7/0)
Despite some weaknesses, The Black Dahlia remains curiously fascinating.
By
Rich Cline
of Shadows on the Wall (7/0)
Brian De Palma's inventive filmmaking style turns this adaptation of the complex James Ellroy nov...
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
of Spirituality and Practice (7/0)
Film noir set in Los Angeles in 1947 is way too long, poorly acted, and covered with a haze of ci...
By
Nick Rogers
of State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL) (7/0)
If only the story could have the same grimy buildup as the windows through which Brian De Palma l...
By
Thomas Peyser
of Style Weekly (Richmond, VA) (7/0)
Forget it, Jake. It's not Chinatown.
By
John Venable
of Supercala.com (7/0)
A beautiful mess.
By
Dustin Putman
of TheMovieBoy.com (7/0)
Words cannot possibly do justice to what a total monstrosity this film is.
By
Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone
of TheMovieChicks.com (7/0)
The movie, like the case, has some loose ends and some compelling moments.
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
Scott Nash
of Three Movie Buffs (7/0)
L.A. Confidential, this isn't, but still worth a look, although you might as well wait for the DV...
By
Ben Walters
of Time Out (7/0)
Ellroy’s prose crawls into characters’ secret hearts and under the reader’s skin, but its foetid ...
By
Tony Medley
of tonymedley.com (7/0)
This is so laughable it must be intended as camp. I was disappointed this wasn't a serious examin...
By
Maitland McDonagh
of TV Guide's Movie Guide (7/0)
A ludicrous mishmash undermined by ghastly performances and a hopelessly convoluted screenplay.
By
Jonathan R. Perry
of Tyler Morning Telegraph (Texas) (7/0)
After two hours of meandering, convoluted indulgences and loose ends, 'The Black Dahlia' reveals ...
By
Brian Tallerico
of UGO (7/0)
You have to wonder just how vibrant the film would have been during the Reagan or Clinton adminis...
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
Urban Cinefile Critics
of Urban Cinefile (7/0)
The Black Dahlia revels in its stylish noir production, even though it gets lost in the maze of i...
By
Claudia Puig
of USA Today (7/0)
What it accomplishes with its stunning cinematography and set design is undercut by a lack of coh...
By
Matthew Turner
of ViewLondon (7/0)
The Black Dahlia is no L.A Confidential but it's still an engagingly stylish detective thriller w...
By
Willie Waffle
of WaffleMovies.com (7/0)
The early Oscar buzz is dead on arrival. You'll be laughing by the end, and not in a good way
By
Jeffrey Chen
of Window to the Movies (7/0)
Although the style amps the attractiveness of individual scenes, it undercuts believability acros...
By
Steven Snyder
of Zertinet Movies (7/0)
The Black Dahlia, sadly, is a whale of a groaner.
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
John Beifuss
of Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) (3/5) Login Required (Login Required)
Reaffirms De Palma's status as American cinema's cruelest social satirist...
By
Greg Maki
of Star-Democrat (Easton, MD) (3/5) Login Required (Login Required)
De Palma ... does little more than retrace his steps ...
By
Staci Layne Wilson
of About.com (6/1) No reference
De Palma and Ellroy - for the most part it's a marriage made in noir nirvana.
By
Christopher Smith
of Bangor Daily News (Maine) (6/1) No reference
With fall and its promise of better movies on the horizon, this movie, like "Hollywoodland," coul...
By
Richard Mowe
of Boxoffice Magazine (3/4) No reference
De Palma has the perfect recipe for a madcap rollercoaster ride that never allows the viewer time...
By
Daniel M. Kimmel
of Christian Science Monitor (3/4) No reference
[A]n 'interesting failure'... In the end, it doesn't quite work, but you probably won't be sorry...
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
Devin Faraci
of CHUD (6/1) No reference
De Palma's Black Dahlia captures exactly what I see in my head when I read James Ellroy's novels.
By
Garth Franklin
of Dark Horizons (3/4) No reference
An over cooked ham of a film, overstuffed with vampish performances and a narrative far too convo...
By
Jeff Vice
of Deseret News, Salt Lake City (6/1) No reference
Dahlia feels like two completely different movies accidentally smooshed together. It doesn't work...
By
Matt Stevens
of E! Online (3/4) No reference
In the end, stylish Dahlia gets bludgeoned with De Palma melodrama.
By
Brian Juergens
of Freeze Dried Movies (6/1) No reference
This muddled late-career meditation on Hollywood artifice and ambition only captures brief flashe...
By
Robert Hanks
of Independent (3/4) No reference
Almost every decision that was taken here seems to have been the wrong one, from the casting of t...
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
James Sanford
of Kalamazoo Gazette (6/1) No reference
doesn't skimp when it comes to dishing up plot twists and complications -- if you take a bathroom...
By
Robert W. Butler
of Kansas City Star (3/4) No reference
Almost nothing works in this incoherent and uncompelling movie.
By
Josh Bell
of Las Vegas Weekly (6/1) No reference
Forget it, Bucky, the film seems to say. It's De Palma-town.
By
Glenn Whipp
of Los Angeles Daily News (6/1) No reference
What on paper seems to be the perfect marriage of maker and material turns out to be a bust in it...
By
Carina Chocano
of Los Angeles Times (3/4) No reference
Despite some amusing distractions, watching the big picture coalesce is not unlike watching someo...
By
Nell Minow
of Movie Mom at Yahoo! Movies (6/1) No reference
De Plama losses control of the tone as the story and its characters spin wildly over the top.
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
Mark Ramsey
of MovieJuice! (3/4) No reference
'Character? Forget it. I'm playing me,' said Johansson. 'I'm the Burgess Meredith of T & A.'
By
Chris Barsanti
of MovieWeb (6/1) No reference
it seems time to stop making excuses for the man -- Brian de Palma has become one very bad direct...
By
Lou Lumenick
of New York Post (3/4) No reference
...visually dazzling but ultimately disappointing...
By
Shawn Levy
of Oregonian (3/4) No reference
The Black Dahlia has sparks of brilliance, swaths of dark intensity, unpredictable crackles of wi...
By
Roger Moore
of Orlando Sentinel (3/4) No reference
The Black Dahlia is a NASCAR race all but ended by a spectacular wreck on the next-to-last lap.
By
Gary Thompson
of Philadelphia Daily News (3/4) No reference
The Dahlia stars have the cigarettes and the cocktails and the lingo, but watching them here is l...
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
Forrest Hartman
of Reno Gazette-Journal (3/4) No reference
The story is all over the place, leaving viewers with a complicated and disjointed picture that t...
By
Mike Ward
of Richmond.com (3/4) No reference
Even though Hollywood is known for fakes and forgeries, from fake breasts to fake Rolexes and fak...
By
Carla Meyer
of Sacramento Bee (6/1) No reference
Highly stylized and overburdened with plot yet always engaging.
By
Eric Melin
of Scene-Stealers.com (3/4) No reference
It is the style, stupid- the dialogue, the gloominess, the shadows, the doomed destiny that preva...
By
Sean Piccoli
of South Florida Sun-Sentinel (3/4) No reference
Such a baroque, incoherent mess it fails to please as a period piece or a murder mystery.
By
Chris Hewitt (St. Paul)
of St. Paul Pioneer Press (3/4) No reference
A film as vivid, outrageous and thrilling as Hollywood itself.
Reviews of Black Dahlia, The
By
Mary F. Pols
of Contra Costa Times (6/1) Not Reachable
De Palma doesn't seem to know what to do with these actors.
By
Rene Rodriguez
of Miami Herald (6/1) Not Reachable
Brian De Palma spent three years struggling to get The Black Dahlia made, which helps explain why...
By
Jim Lane
of Sacramento News & Review (6/1) Not Reachable
the convoluted story never really takes hold, and eventually it all dissolves into low camp and u...
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