The Black Dahlia (2006)

Directed by Brian De Palma. Starring Josh Hartnett, Aaron Eckhart, Scarlett Johansson, Hilary Swank, Mike Starr, Mia Kirshner, Patrick Fischler, Fiona Shaw, John Kavanagh, James Otis, Rose McGowan. [R]

The notorious unsolved murder of Elizabeth Smart (“Black Dahlia”) in post-war Hollywood serves as the basis for this story of two moody LAPD detectives (Hartnett, Eckhart) whose troubled lives start to spiral out of control during the high-profile investigation. Based on James Ellroy’s same-named novel (linked to, among others, “L.A. Confidential”), this disappointingly derivative De Palma venture into period crime noir territory lays it on pretty thick trying to recreate the era’s lurid and sinful milieu, and the awkward storytelling is a pastiche of police procedural clichés and ambiguous clues/confessions that try for haunting but land on puzzling. Contains the expected sparks of visual pizzazz courtesy of the director’s stylish flair and Vilmos Zsigmond’s atmospheric camerawork, but there’s no narrative hook to pull the viewer into the labyrinth, and the sloppy stitches of post-production tinkering are easy to spot. Also suffers from several glaring cases of poor casting, none more so than trying to turn Swank into a seductive femme fatale (with a laughable accent); Kirshner leaves a satisfying impression, however, as the enigmatic woman who would become the famed corpse. Shaw launches into a demonstration of hysterics in the final act that is so melodramatic, it resembles a character that Molly Shannon might have played on “Saturday Night Live.” Look for singer k. d. lang performing at a lesbian bar.

38/100