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Black Dahlia, The
Universal Pictures


2.7

based on 35 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 109 votes
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FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for strong violence, some grisly images, sexual content and language

Starring Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank, Mia Kirshner, Mike Starr, Fiona Shaw, and Patrick Fischler

The Black Dahlia weaves a fictionalized tale of obsession, love, corruption, greed and depravity around the brutal murder of a fledgling Hollywood starlet that shocked and fascinated the nation in 1947 and remains unsolved today. (Universal Pictures)

GENRE(S):	Crime \| Drama \| Mystery \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Josh Friedman James Ellroy (novel)
DIRECTED BY:	Brian De Palma
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: December 26, 2006 Theatrical: September 15, 2006
RUNNING TIME:	121 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Germany / USA

Nominated, Golden Lion, 2006 Venice Film Festival

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Hartnett and co-star Scarlett Johansson--that most fatale of current filmic femmes--are naturals for this kind of noir-hued material, but the pairing of Ellroy and De Palma proves a marriage made in hardboiled heaven.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

There are some virtuoso moments (the discovery of the mutilated corpse is extremely well done and blessedly ungraphic), but overall the result is much less than prime De Palma.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

The second half feels heavy and unfulfilled, potential greatness reduced to a good movie plagued with problems.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Although the action set pieces are impressive, the exposition is sluggish. For all the posh dollies, high angles, and Venetian-blind crisscross patterns, The Black Dahlia rarely achieves the rhapsodic (let alone the delirious).

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The film is more than a little in love with the corruption it finds under the floorboards -- and that, of course, is perfectly dandy. I wouldn't trust a film noir that wasn't enthralled by decadence.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

De Palma's direction shines, but noir script doesn't match his gifts.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

If this overcooked version of James Ellroy’s novel - inspired by a famous 1947 Los Angeles murder - is less than fully satisfying or even believable storytelling and acting, it’s still possible to get a kick out of this fever dream loaded with eye candy.

Premiere Ethan Alter

You've got to give the guy (De Palma) some credit. He's made a bizarre, baffling and at times flat-out bad movie. But at least it's rarely boring.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

The film's atmosphere is incendiary. It has style to burn. But for the most part, the performances are all wet.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

Swank's character and her performance are good enough to merit a movie of their own, instead of serving as fourth wheel to this lifeless ménage à trois.

Variety Todd McCarthy

"Chinatown" it ain't, not in any department. On its own level, however, new pic generates a reasonable degree of intrigue.

Empire Adam Smith

Gorgeously realised, gripping and doused in De Palma’s familiar technical wizardry, this is only let down by the director’s equally familiar uninterest in the humanity of his characters.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

The Black Dahlia has sparks of brilliance, swaths of dark intensity, unpredictable crackles of wit, some solid acting. But it's chiefly flat and ambling and dull, insufficient in musculature and overripe with melodrama.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

The plot has been greatly streamlined from Ellroy's book, but even so, it isn't any clearer, and the ending, convoluted and barely believable, hits with a thud.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Film noir is a style, but self-conscious film noir is just a stylistic tic, less a genre than an ailment. And The Black Dahlia has got a really bad case -- this thing is so mannered it convulses.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The world of The Black Dahlia is beyond bleak, beyond film noir.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The first thing you notice about this so-so adaptation of James Ellroy's novel is the shoddy acting.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

In writer Josh Friedman and director Brian de Palma's attempts to condense the book's convulsively odd final chapters, they've created an even loonier melodrama.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The sloppiness of the ending doesn't only damage The Black Dahlia, it sinks the project.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Looks and flows great, dripping with the 1940s crime-thriller atmosphere that James Ellroy described in his 1987 novel. On other levels -- plot (overstuffed), suspense (muted), acting (Hilary Swank as a femme fatale? Please!), posing (Scarlett Johansson plays dress-up as a mini Lana Turner), sex (it's all before and after) -- the movie is a bust.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Director Brian De Palma will probably take the rap for this tepid noir, but the real culprits are Josh Hartnett and Scarlett Johansson, red-hot lovers in life but (as ever) gorgeous stiffs on-screen.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The production certainly looks sumptuous, and certifies Mr. Hartnett as a mainstream movie star. But the script is frequently impenetrable, the pacing is ponderous, and the film noir style can't conceal a crucial piece of misconceived casting.

USA Today Claudia Puig

The Black Dahlia captivates with its dark style. But as with the particulars of the yet-unsolved case, the movie is frustratingly convoluted. What it accomplishes with its stunning cinematography and set design is undercut by a lack of coherence.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

The Black Dahlia, looks so terrific and is filled with so many imaginatively showy sequences and masterful directorial touches that you almost don't notice that, in every other way, it's just not a very good movie.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

A few scenes are worth the price of admission for their inspired camp alone; Shaw happens to be in two of them.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Beautifully crafted, intricately plotted and obviously a labor of love. It is also a mess.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

Mr. De Palma can be a director of dazzling creative lunacy, but there's little craziness in this restrained, awkward film. With the diverting exception of Hilary Swank, who plays a slinky degenerate named Madeleine Linscott, the leads are disastrous.

The New Yorker David Denby

The picture is a kind of fattened goose that's been stuffed with goose-liver pâté. It's overrich and fundamentally unsatisfying.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

It's a stilted thing--overstylized and inexpressive, like high-school kids playing dress-up, or bad Kabuki.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Here's the lowdown, the q.t., the true gen: The Black Dahlia is a big nowhere.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

A ludicrous mishmash undermined by ghastly performances and a hopelessly convoluted screenplay.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Doesn't provoke bittersweet inquiries regarding one poor actress' grisly fate. Nor does it stir up much provocation on the matter of why, as a popular audience, we're still taken with this lurid symbol of sex and dread and desire. Rather, the movie raises a much simpler question: Huh?

Slate Dana Stevens

Even when engineering a howler like this, De Palma does it in such high style, with such a confident swagger, that the movie is half over before you realize how little is there.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

It looks stylish, sure, but the script is laughable and the acting is ridiculous.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Forty-five minutes in, I was already glancing at my watch and wondering why the only lively actress in this film was playing the dead girl. Go figure.

The average user rating for this movie is 2.7 (out of 10) based on 109 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Tim R. gave it a9:
I seemed to be the only person giving this a good review. I loved this film for the vintage noir feel it had to it and i thought it to be well acted and engaging. However i thought the ending left something to be desired and ultimately lacked the strength the rest of the movie had. In any case i enjoyed it.

James A. gave it a0:
This movie would be worse than our Home Video. Dont waste time!!

redlight gave it a5:
the following is from empire's review of the film, which i agree with: "De Palma is interested not a jot in the feelings of his characters, and thus the denouement which, in a way appropriate for noir, verges on the loopy, is frigid and unsatisfying. It’s par for the course for the director, but here it’s a flaw thrown into sharp relief by the reality of the subject matter. Perhaps we should try to disentangle poor Elizabeth Short from the fiction and recall that that at the centre of this maelstrom of technical artistry, armchair speculation and noirish atmos, there’s the ruined body of a young woman who, 59 years ago, met someone, or something, that surely no-one deserves to."

Graham M. gave it a4:
The only good thing to say about this film is its certain type of atmosphere and that it is not as bad as a striaght to video movie. Worth a rental if one is interested.

Dave J. gave it a3:
The plot was a good idea but the production left the plot go astray. It got boring after a while and the only reason I finished it was to see who the killer was. Could have been done a great deal better than it was.

BMan A. gave it a1:
The only reason why I gave this movie a 1 is because it made me laugh so hard because I couldn't follow the movie worth sh.t and thought the acting was something from like a pre-school play. So laugh your ass off while you watch this "great" movie about bullsh.t. (yeah right)

Helen gave it a1:
The most non-sensical, badly acted movie I have seen in ages. Josh Hartnett is so badly cast in this. Crazy, nothing makes sense, convenient stories to help stitch the rambling story line together. SKIP IT!

Black Dahlia, The Universal Pictures

Black Dahlia, The
Universal Pictures