The Black Dahlia story retold

If you are looking for a movie about the murder mystery of Black Dahlia that fascinated the nation since 1947, then this not the movie you are looking for. Numerous television shows have been produced that document the murder in greater detail than this movie purports to do. The producers of this movie undertook this project with a great confidence that this will succeed in the same way as the movie "LA Confidential," which is based on the James Ellroy novel, but their calculations were erroneous. James Ellroy also wrote this novel about Black dahlia case but not so much about the murder per se, but about the cops of LAPD; the divisiveness, corruption, and coercion. The movie has plenty of sexual perversion, tramps, lesbian cocktail lounges of 1940s Los Angeles, and ménage a trios, violence and crime not directly related to the Black Dahlia case. Many of historical facts surrounding Elizabeth Short and her father were wrong. Her father lived near San Francisco not LA.

You don't hear about Black Dahlia murder until about 20-25 minutes into the movie and the main thing you learn about the murder victim is that she slept around with almost any man or a woman for a cigarette and sandwich. Unfortunately this is not what is said about the unfortunate victim, Elizabeth Short in many investigative television shows.

Scarlet Johansson and Hilary Swank are two of the finest performers of Hollywood but unfortunately their talents are not used appropriately. Poor Johansson is subjected to a strange and sometimes humiliating ménage a trios with her boy friend Aaron Eckhart (as 'Mr. Fire') and his pal Josh Hartnett (as 'Mr. Ice'). Did it make any difference to the movie if this relationship didn't exist? I can't help but compare this movie with "LA Confidential." I think the performance of Josh Harnett as a tough cop of LAPD is far superior to the performance of Russell Crowe.

Reference: The black Dahlia – DVD (Wide screen edition) starring Josh Harnett