The Black Dahlia

The Black Dahlia is a neo-Noir film Directed by Brian De Palma and based on the book of the same name by James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential). The film was a critical and commercial failure on its release in 2005 and I first saw it on DVD in about 2007 but on a really small TV in my girlfriend’s university flat. We both fell asleep so didn’t remember much about it. There were two reasons why I wanted to see the movie again. The first was that it was featured in a fantastic Sight & Sound article about post 2000 Noir and the second was Scarlett Johansson. Any excuse to watch one of her films. Having seen it properly now I’ve come to the conclusion that I probably didn’t need to see it again and there’s a reason I didn’t remember much of it. The Black Dahlia is overly confusing and the time I spent trying to piece things together took me away from the plot and the excellent period world that the film created.

Placed shortly after the Second World War in Los Angeles the movie is set around a real life murder case but everything else is fictional. Former boxers turned cops Dwight 'Bucky' Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) and Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart) take part in a fixed fight which earns everyone in the Department an 8% pay rise. They soon end up as partners and following the grizzly murder of a young wannabe starlet (Mia Kershner) Blanchard begins to obsess about catching the killer, leaving the rest of their work and his girl (Scarlett Johansson) on the outside looking in.

Battle: Los Angeles

"Now you got three hours to get your ass back before those bombs drop, and make no mistake THEY WILL DROP! with... or without you"

Staff Sergeant Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) is on the verge of retiring from the US Marines when he gets called back into action one last time to help repel an alien attack on L.A. What scientists first suspect to be meteors turn out to be the ships of an unidentified species of alien who intend to colonise the Earth and drain its resources. Under the leadership of an untested Lieutenant and with a squad of Marines who don’t trust him, Nantz must help a band of civilians to escape Santa Monica before it is blown up by the Air Force.

This is a film with a multitude of problems which start with the character introductions. For a start there are too many, all introduced with a minute or two of back story. They are all stock characters which have been seen a thousand times. We have the guy who’s getting married, the untested Officer, the guy whose brother was killed, the guy in therapy, the guy from New Joizey, the guy from Texas and perhaps more unusually the guy from Nigeria who enlisted for citizenship. I couldn’t tell you any more about the characters than that and never really cared for any of them. Later they are joined by a female Air Force (pilot? I think) (Michelle Rodriguez) along with five civilians, three of which are children.