The Black Dahlia was the name the press gave to a woman found murdered in the 1940s. She was neatly cut in half and found in a field in Los Angeles. Her real name was Elizabeth Short, a small-town girl trying to make it big in Hollywood. The case is very intriguing because it was never solved.
The movie, “The Black Dahlia,” was directed by Brian De Palma, who has done films such as “Mission Impossible” and “Scarface.”
The plot focuses on two ex-pugilist police officers Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart) and Dwight “Bucky” Bleichert (Josh Hartnett), who are handling the Dahlia case.
The first 30 minutes are about the cops’ boxing careers that entail a boxing match.
The plot then takes a dizzying path. It takes almost half of the movie to even focus on the Dahlia murder.
I had a headache after the movie just thinking about the whole plot. I can only describe it as a lot of confusing things going on that didn’t seem very important.
The only good thing I can say about this movie is the first shot of the discovery of the Black Dahlia. It’s done in a creative way but leaves you wondering when the characters are going to notice a body cut in half. It goes unnoticed for too long, which was really annoying.
There are a lot of relationships going on among this movie that are boring. Blanchard’s girlfriend Kay Lake (Scarlett Johansson) adds little to nothing to the story. She does provide a lot of awkward smoking and some lingerie shots.
Then there’s Madeleine Linscott (Hilary Swank), who is a rich slut, and that’s about it. She resembles the Dahlia. She is another female character that just seems to be there for the smoking and sex. She may or may not be involved with the murder but seems more concerned about sleeping with strange men.
Her mother, Ramona Linscott (Fiona Shaw), acts insane and is scarier than the graphic pictures of the Dahlia’s slain body. She acts too over the top, and it’s never clear why she seems insane.
I am really disappointed with this movie; it should not have been based off a fiction novel and should have dealt more with facts. There aren’t a lot of facts to this story, but the real story is so interesting within itself it didn’t need all these added fictitious factors.
The only thing the movie seemed to use from the Dahlia murder is the way she was murdered and the name of the actual girl. The only time Short is in the movie is when police are watching screen tests of the girl.
I kept expecting the movie to end, not only because I was sick of the movie, but also because the story was going nowhere.
When it finally ended it was the most disappointing ending I’ve ever seen.
It told the audience nothing and was just as confusing as the rest of the movie.