Too often settles for standard B-movie contrivance, proving to disappointed ticket buyers the truth of this odd little movie's best line: 'Hollywood will f*** you when no one else will'.
Comment
09/15/06
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.
Theatrical Release:15-09-2006
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
121 - 140 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
The noir tension and jolting violence fall apart in the finale.
09/15/06
Unfortunately, rather than being his comeback film, The Black Dahlia is just the latest in a long line of disappointments from De Palma.
09/15/06
Delves into a visceral place, slashing through logic and proceeding from a purely physical, lascivious standpoint.
09/15/06
most fun is the high priestess of British stage, Fiona Shaw, who goes over the top as Madeleine's unbalanced mom. Her dinner scene alone with all of her epileptic-like tics and scowls is the grandest of Grand Guignol
09/15/06
Despite the juicy tabloid material and the filmmaking talent involved, "The Black Dahlia" is a bloated and oddly listless production.
09/15/06
"The Black Dahlia" is so cavalier about its plot and characters, so palpably uninterested in giving the audience a coherent, resonant story, that De Palma's noir exercise becomes an exercise in frustration.
09/15/06
As the character drama bogs down in Hartnett and Johansson's maudlin mumbling, De Palma starts to focus on shoehorning in a punchy setpiece or stylistic outrage.
09/15/06
A beautiful mess.
09/15/06
With such an accomplished cast assembled, Scarlett Johannson, Hilary Swank and Aaron Eckhart, director Brian De Palma should be slapped upside the head for allowing them to overact.
09/15/06
The writing is bad, and the cast overplays their roles to the point of silliness. The director has to take most of the blame.
09/15/06
[A]n 'interesting failure'... In the end, it doesn't quite work, but you probably won't be sorry you saw it...
09/15/06
Ambitiously well-made, sometimes laughably trashy, always interesting, and occasionally so odd you just have to chuckle, shake your head and say, 'Oh, De Palma....'
09/15/06
...sits on the screen, mysteriously inert and uninvolving....despite De Palma's always-reliable technical skills.... It may well be his worst film since the execrable Wise Guys.
09/15/06
De Palma's bliss in depicting the bruise-n-babes era roars at the senses like a 3-D effect, pushing Dahlia to wonderful heights of production detail.
09/14/06
Although the style amps the attractiveness of individual scenes, it undercuts believability across the whole.
09/14/06
Forget it, Bucky, the film seems to say. It's De Palma-town.
09/14/06
The Black Dahlia isn't just bad. It's impressively bad. I didn't think they could make a movie this bad.
09/14/06
Without some serious gravitas, the picture flies apart under the strain of Ellroy and De Palma's complementary psychoses.
09/14/06
He walked into my office like he knew he was trouble. 'Name's Hartnett,' he said. 'I'm looking for my career.'
09/14/06
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