The Black Dahlia
The Black Dahlia murder was something I always wanted to noodle over when I had the time. Silly me, I probably shouldn't have rented an adaptation of a noir novel looking for such silly things as "facts" or "plausible theories". I know less about the case now then when I knew nothing. This mini-review will contain a few very vague spoilers, nothing big. Actually it's not so much of a review as a helpful list of tips I have assembled for Brian De Palma, Josh Friedman, and a Mr. James Ellroy;
Okay fellas, first off, if your film is apocryphally supposed to be about a famous murder case, you might want to make the case figure into the film at some point. You know, discuss evidence, and refrain from making things up out of whole cloth, etc. It might also be a good idea to at least have the case existing beyond the periphery of the proceedings. A movie about the "gritty" travails of two boxers trying very hard not to find any murder evidence, not telling anyone about what they didn't find, and turning evil and/or schtupping witnesses at seemingly random moments just isn't that engaging. This film reminded me a lot of 'Pearl Harbor'. Leaden characters in an uninteresting and insensate love triangle for two hours. Oh, and every now and again there were some Japanese guys doing something loud, or something.
And on that note, If you're going to focus on your characters you might want to make them real human beings. Not the same type of flat, clichéd, noir stereotypes we've been seeing for 60 years or so. You know, folks who don't do things hilariously out of character every now and again just to establish how "complex" and troubled they are?
Speaking of cliché, you might not want to rip off half the plot from 'The Big Sleep'. The rich and corrupt family, their offspring-the not so innocent sisters, the murderous pornography racket, the semi-friendly crime boss who indirectly helps the protagonist piece things together. There were countless pulp novels released in the 40's that no one remembers. Why not crib from a few of those?
Oh and about the plot, in the future, try to make your third act in some way believable. Perhaps a resolution that a human being could actually see occurring in a rational universe. Not a cockamamie mulligan stew of Byzantine conspiracy, chance encounters, betrayal, disfigurement, madness, and quadruple-twisting corruption.
My head hurts. I think I'll go lie down in a vacant field for a while.
3.0
December 30, 2006