Negative Positive
Title: "She looks just like that dead girl!"
Review: The Black Dahlia is a great book but a bad movie. The actors in this film are going to take a lot of heat, but that is unfair; when all the performances are bad, it's the fault of the director. Some people are calling for Brian DePalma to retire and, on the basis of this film, they may have a point. It's not just that it's bad, it's aggressively bad - the kind of bad that takes real work. The audience I saw this with was laughing through the whole thing. Indeed, it is the type of film that Mystery Science Theater 3000 would appreciate. The only thing I can think of was that DePalma was trying to parody the conventions of noir: the tough guy detective lead, the voice-over narration, the over-the top acting and dialogue. The trouble is, it doesn't come off as tongue-in-cheek - it just comes off as bad. The only actor who really does a good job with her part is Hilary Swank - because she does play it for laughs.
Is the review positive or negative? 