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THE BLACK DAHUA narrator in detective ‘Bucky‘ Bleichert (Josh Hartnett, : 1' , .; v x. l: .’ (18)120m'n ... whose previous turns in Scottish director Paul : i T' v " I). l McGuigan’s Wicker Park and last year‘s Lucky Number . .. l" . : " .a' i The facts: on 15 January 1947, a 22-year-old fledgling Slevin have in retrospect turned out to be his auditions " z‘ :' x l' i '/ " . v t: ' " 1 East Coast actress called Elizabeth ‘Betty' Short was to play the type of role that Humphrey Bogart made his r2: - w A‘ :l discovered brutally murdered in downtown LA. The own). Bleichert and his partner Lee Blanchard (Aaron I l " " I. l : ' x ;' ' ~ ' murder of the actress the press dubbed ‘the Black Eckhart) are both ex-pugilists, and having bonded in the >4 a n l. .i, l : ' ~ ' ' . .' .' Dahlia’ (because of the black outfits she wore) remains ring they set out to solve murder. Cue film noir staples - . -! V ' unsolved, and that in Hollywood terms has the makings the devastatingly attractive and mysterious women, in h . , t , of legend, and more importantly, a potential money the form of Blanchard’s girlfriend Kay Lake (Scarlett making movie. Better still, the problem of how to turn Johansson) - the doppelganger for Short's corpse (Mia (18) 87min .. this fact into a story was solved by legendary crime Kirschner) and the rich daughter of a filmmaker, writer James Ellroy (LA Confidential) in 1987 when he Madeleine Linscott (Hilary Swank). ;' . w l :' ~r .l' t: H .l' penned The Black Dahlia; a fictional investigation into Propped up by De Palma’s usual immaculate eye for 2: ' . .z ' -’ x x w l: the murder of Short as a way of exorcising the many period detail and feel for genuine suspense The Black ' 1" z" " '2 r v- N ' y r " ,: demons he had from his own mother’s 1958 Dahlia still manages to underline De Palma‘s many lazy .‘ a: 2 . " ,: w A 'l :~ strangulation. It is this fictional account, replete with and flabby foibles as a director, while Josh Friedman‘s ' ' s ' :' ,z z z - gruesome murders, mystery and doppelgangers that adaptation of Ellroy‘s source book is both perplexingly V l " z «I» A w l : . " ;' filmmaker Brian De Palma (Scarface, The loose and alarmingly trite in the conclusion. A half- ' ~ . ' (,7 u: z..wi Untouchables) has latched onto to make his best film arsed solution to this enduring riddle. (Kaleem Aftab) ' a ii", :: " since Carlito’s Way. .(3tP'lt'.'.i"’s’Wiw""”"l' 7" 8w," 'v .v '1'

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