Black Dahlia: Based on the real events surrounding the death of aspiring actress Elizabeth Short in Los Angeles in the 50's (her bisected corpse was found in an abandoned lot and no killer was ever caught for the crime). James Ellroy, who also gave us the book upon which the fantastic "LA Confidential" was based, has imagined a scenario to explain what happened to Ms. Smart (portrayed in the film by Mia Kirschner). The movie starts with the discovery of Ms. Smart's body. Detectives Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart) and Bucky Bleichert (Josh Hartnett), LAPD's golden boys "Mr. Fire and Mr. Ice", are assigned to the case to determine who did what to Ms. Smart. They are about as close as partners can be, even loving the same woman. It leads the two on a trail of seediness through the underbelly of LA, including stag films and lesbian bars. And with the way Ellroy's books are, not everyone is who they say they are and not everyone makes it to the final scene alive. Directed by Brian De Palma, this is almost the most plodding "thriller" I’ve ever seen. Clocking in at just over 2 hours, this film lacks all the energy of "LA Confidential". And the reveal seems so bizarre and macabre (and also incomplete and underwhelming) that once it arrives, you wonder why the hell you hung around for it in the first place. Casting is part of the problem - Eckhart is the better actor, Eckhart got the smaller part. Hartnett is fairly wooden and Hilary Swank is very over-the-top. Kirschner is best as an appealing young person swept up in something she couldn't possibly understand. But that doesn't salvage the whole movie. The film gets overwhelmed by its noir. Woodchuck sez, "Skip it."
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