Elizabeth "Betty" Short, a 22-year-old aspiring actress from the East Coast who wore a delicate flower in her raven hair and became many things to many people--dear friend, beloved sister, estranged daughter, frequent girlfriend and accused prostitute. On January 15, 1947, she was discovered brutally splayed in a vacant lot near Leimert Park in downtown Los Angeles. Enter onto the scene two ex-pugilist police officers, Lee Blanchard and Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert, the poster boys for 1940s LAPD. The new partners' first homicide case starts with a call from their supervisor, Detective Millard, to investigate the slaying of the ambitious silver screen B-lister Betty Short, just as they leave a deadly shootout.

Blanchard and Bleichert, like the rest of the fascinated city, become drawn into the lurid world of the Dahlia's L.A. While Blanchard's growing preoccupation with the Dahlia's murder threatens his relationship with girlfriend Kay Lake, Bleichert finds himself irresistibly drawn to the enigmatic Madeleine Linscott, the daughter of one of the city's most prominent families--who just happens to have an unsavory connection (and resemblance) to the Dahlia. Blanchard spins into obsession trying to solve the case, seeing in Betty the chance to redeem himself for letting down the other women in his life that he failed to protect. Bleichert, too, begins to question his own footing as his feelings fluctuate wildly between two disparate dames: the seemingly innocent Kay and the knowingly seductive Madeleine--whose unhinged mother, Ramona, proves to hold more than a passing clue to the mystery. Determined to be famous, destined to be infamous, Betty Short affected more lives dead than she could possibly alive. She dreamed of being photographed for the big screen but wound up the pin-up girl of tabloid autopsy photos.

I love film noir but there is probably a very good reason we don’t see more of these kinds of movies and that reason is that these kinds of movies are very hard to pull off well. The Black Dahlia does a good job at film noir but it fails and doing a great job and with so many great noir films out there this is kind of a big disappointment. You want the movie to live up to its potential and when it doesn’t, it’s quite the let down. To call some of the plotlines convoluted at times would be kind as the movie takes more turns and goes down more dead end streets to try and confuse it’s audiences that it becomes almost insulting at times. Tell us your story, lead us on your mystery trail, drop your clues but please stop trying to mislead us and confuse us. That is where the movie fails, where it goes from the possibility of being great to being just good and it does it all on its own. Too many false leads that lead to nothing take us away from the story, take us away from the characters and lose our interest little by little. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

Brian De Palma has had quite the career and I think his ego gets in the way of his movies at sometimes. It is like he screaming at you threw his film work “Hey I made Scarface, Carrie and Carlito’s Way you must respect me,” But he is forgetting that he as also made junk like Mission to Mars and Snake Eyes. Just because you have had a career that has a number of cult and iconic films in it doesn’t mean you can just rest on your laurels and not try really hard to make movies as fantastic as those that you have already made. At times it doesn’t even seem like Brian De Palma is even trying, rather just copying much better film noir movies from Chinatown, all the way to L.A. Confidential. I know somewhere Brian De Palma has some fantastic stylings of his own because he has shown us that he can make iconic movies this just isn’t one of them.

Josh Hartnett, and Scarlett Johansson are two of my favorite young actors in Hollywood right now and it’s a shame that they weren’t used to there full potentials. Josh Hartnett never really feels like this hardcore cop on the dirty streets, rather he feels like he should be the young rookie who should be shocked by all the depravity that he is becoming witness too. Scarlett Johansson on the other hand feels out of place as she can’t decide if she should be the sultry temptress or if she is the loving and faithful lover caught between two people she loves. Aaron Eckhart on the other hand feels perfect for his role as he seems the like the veteran hardened cop that has just seen and done too much. The movie is ok but its neither iconic or will it be a cult favorite.

Grade: C+