On its surface, The Black Dahlia looks like a can’t-miss film. Directed by Brian De Palma, whose fame has been cut from the cloths of Scarface and The Untouchables, sporting a cast of folks who look like they were lifted right out of 1940’s Hollywood (most notably Aaron Eckhardt and Scarlett Johansson ), and claming to focus on the “most notorious unsolved murder in California history,” the film should be one of the best-produced period mysteries of the year. Instead, what you get from watching the movie is a cautionary tale - not about the cut throat life in Hollywood but about not giving too much credence to movie trailers. Indeed, The Black Dahlia is far lesser than the film it is advertised to be and, whether you view it as an intentional but subtle skewering of the noir style or not, far lesser than the sum of its elsewhere wonderful parts.

The movie follows Bucky Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) and Lee Blanchard (Eckhardt), two boxers-turned-LAPD officers who get caught up investigating the murder of Elizabeth Short (Mia Krishner), a young actress whose death earned her the nickname “The Black Dahlia” and wrapped half of the police department in obsession or conspiracy. Blanchard is particularly perturbed by the murder as he begins to discover that his girlfriend (Johansson) has ties to the crime.

That’s about all that can be scraped from the edges of the bottomless pit that is the plot. The twists and turns in the investigation are so confusing, to both Bleichert and the viewer, that they lead to side questions and distractions. In investigating the case, Bleichert also finds that he needs to balance his personal life, including his relationship with Johansson’s character and a socialite (Hilary Swank) he meets with connections to the case. By the time he gets around to the specifics, the investigation, like the movie, is a lost cause.

The screenplay, adapted from the novel by James Ellroy (who also penned L.A. Confidential), is a mess. Bleichert narrates the film over cheesy 40’s detective show music, a technique that bring out some of the campiest (the bad kind) lines in recent memory instead of peppering the film with insight. And while Hartnett looks the part, his delivery leaves a lot to be desired, as does the rest of the acting. Even Johansson seems less than her stellar self in her role.

I’ve read it argued that De Palma was trying to make a goofy send-up to the noir style, but in this case, he was too busy chuckling at his own in-jokes to realize that what wound up on screen was trite, confusing, and an overall disappointment.

Rating: * 1/2 of 5

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