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The Black Dahlia

2006

Brian De Palma

Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank ...

5.4

17,717

Film noir. Thriller Los Angeles, year 1947. Two policemen, friends and former boxers, Bucky Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) and Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart) are in love with the same woman, the mysterious Kay Lake (Scarlett Johansson), former friend of a gangster. However, it is a terrible crime that the two are called on to investigate that changes their lives for ever: the murder of Elizabeth Short (Mia Kirshner), a girl with ambitions to be an actress, known ... [+]

	Author	Review
United States	Todd McCarthy Variety	"A literally ripping good yarn is undercut by some lackluster performances and overripe melodrama"	NEU
United States	Claudia Puig USA Today	"It lacks the novel's subtle, moody substance. Perhaps if Ellroy had fashioned the script from his crackling prose, the story might have matched the visual achievements of the film.(...) Rating: ★★ (out of 4)"	NEU
United Kingdom	Peter Bradshaw The Guardian	"This is a handsomely mounted movie, and it's directed with gusto, but unlike Curtis Hanson's LA Confidential, all the cynicism and corruption and twisty plot chicanery leads nowhere very satisfying (...) Rating: ★★ (out of 5)"	NEG
United States	Nathan Rabin AV Club	"In many ways, Dahlia is De Palma's History Of Violence—a virtuoso thriller by a wildly idiosyncratic filmmaker working at his most restrained and commercial"	POS
United States	Mick LaSalle SFGATE	"Director Brian De Palma invests careful attention in creating this world (...) But, with the exception of Aaron Eckhart, De Palma's actors can't live up to the period or the atmosphere"	NEU

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