James Ellroy's theory of the case -- the unsolved murder, disembowelment, and bisection of Hollywood wannabe Elizabeth Short in 1947 -- as expounded in 325 dense pages of fiction, fitted on screen into the film noir boilerplate: the laconic first-person narration of a two-fisted cop (Josh Hartnett), the moody solo trumpet of Mark Isham in the background, and a blonde and brunette brace of femmes fatales (Scarlett Johansson, Hilary Swank). Brian De Palma, the director, has never had much grasp of narrative, and here the tangle so overwhelms him that he neglects even his baroque stylistics. A complicated piece of slo-mo action, akin to his Potemkin plagiarism in The Untouchables, is not only unpersuasive in its staging, but fails to conceal the identity of the killer despite going to great pains (short of cheating with a stand-in) to do so. The highlight, if there must be one, would probably be K.D. Lang's rendition of "Love for Sale" in a subterranean lesbian nightclub. A lower but steadier light comes from the nice waxy sheen of Vilmos Zsigmond's cinematography. With Aaron Eckhart, Mia Kirshner, Fiona Shaw. (2006) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.