Once every decade, it seems, Brian De Palma, whose modus operandi entails the elevation of trash, feels compelled to take on the adaptation of a massive and complexly plotted novel — the summary work of one of contemporary literature's titans. Quixotic efforts of this sort are virtually impossible not to botch, of course, but De Palma takes no chances: For each crucial role, he searches far and wide, seeking the movie star who least embodies the character as written. That's how we got Tom Hanks as a Wall Street kingpin, Bruce Willis as a British tabloid journalist, and Melanie Griffith as a recognizable human being.
Based on James Ellroy's 1987 neo-pulp classic, The Black Dahlia can't match the legendary ineptitude of Bonfire of the Vanities, but it's certainly not for lack of trying. From the moment that plucky, lanky Josh Hartnett starts rattling off Ellroy's hard-boiled narration, it's painfully clear that all efforts at capturing the author's pungent machismo and doomed eroticism will be in vain; whether you want to call him boyish or puppyish, Hartnett is inescapably "-ish," forever a pale imitation. Here, as Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert (admittedly, Hartnett looks like a Bucky), an L.A. cop embroiled in murder, corruption, and the clutches of two femmes fatales, he looks as if he's wandered in from Brick, if not Bugsy Malone. I was half-tempted to scan the audience for his beaming, proud parents.
Hartnett's casting is all but fatal by its lonesome, but the other actors don't fare much better. As Bucky's partner, Lee Blanchard, Aaron Eckhart has the requisite chiseled profile and handles the stylized dialogue with ease, but he can't quite summon the Neanderthal-chivalrous volatility that Russell Crowe brought to a similar role in L.A. Confidential. Scarlett Johansson looks stunning when De Palma's camera first booms in for an old-Hollywood close-up, but is plainly self-conscious about being the story's designated sex object. Only Mia Kirshner, playing Elizabeth Short, the real-life woman whose mutilated corpse inspired Ellroy's novel, seems fully comfortable with the iconic performance style this lurid material requires. Seen mostly in screen tests, Kirshner (Exotica) gives Short's struggling actress an avid, almost hypnotic salaciousness that transcends the poor young woman's usual function as a symbol of broken Tinseltown dreams. De Palma himself appears as the (offscreen) director in these brief interludes; sadly, they're the only part of the film with which he feels fully engaged. — Mike D'Angelo