LThomas72

'The Black Dahlia' has long been one of my favourite of Ellroy's novels, and man I love everything the Big Dog's ever written. I read it about ten years ago, knowing very little about him or his other novels, only that he wrote pure L.A noir and was well known for his unusual staccato style and misogynistic leading men. And, just like Lee Blanchard, I became helplessly obsessed with an icon.

After 'L.A Confidential' was made, Curtis Hanson was touted as director for the 'Dahlia' for a year or so and my hopes for it soared. It's hard as hell to distill something as complex and stylish as Ellroy's writing into the medium of film, but somehow he'd managed it and with real flair and honesty. Ever character in 'L.A Confidential' was crucial to the plot - like playing cards in a perfectly balanced house of cards - and I marvelled at how Hanson had managed to pull of some perfectly nuanced and generous performances from such strong personalities as Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey and Guy Pearce. 'L.A Confidential' was like crack to me, like someone had just filmed my brain while I read the book and then transferred it to film, and I was in heaven.

But then came the news that De Palma was directing 'The Dahlia' and suddenly I felt real fear. Don't get me wrong. I rate De Palma. 'The Untouchables' is a wonderfully stylish movie, as is 'Scarface', and 'Carlito's Way' ranks pretty highly with me as well, but just lately his offerings have kind of fallen short of the mark. I'm not sure that I'd label him 'a hack' but, in his last few movies at least, it's almost like you can smell the lack of imagination, the desperation to equal his past triumphs and to live up to that label they stuck on him during the 80s of 'The New Hitchcock'. And let's face it, 'Mission To Mars' wasn't exactly setting the screen alight.

And then I saw the cast. Many years ago, I'd - impossibly - cast a much younger Gary Busey as Bucky Bleichert but, as time went on, I could see that was never going to become a reality. Although I considered Jake Busey for a while, I was never convinced he had the acting chops to pull it off, so I wasn't too disappointed to read that De Palma had cast Josh Hartnett in the role. OK, so he didn't look like Bucky, but he was solid and I was convinced he could pull it off. Scarlett Johansson as Kay Lake I could almost see. She had the right look, the right combination of sweetness and smarts maybe, and Aaron Eckhart as Lee Blanchard seemed like the best choice of the lot, although, weirdly, he looked far more like the book's description of Bucky than Hartnett ever could, but I let that one slide. Hilary Swank I didn't bat an eyelid at - she's a fantastic actress I said to myself - and Madeleine, although important, isn't part of the Big Three, so anything she does on screen is going to be alright by me.

But, oh my god, how wrong can you be.

You see, this is what 'L.A Confidential' did right. It recognised that the book is an ensemble piece, that each character is as important - in their own way - as another. Each performance relies on the integrity of the other to balance it and, if one is part of the whole is weak (Madeleine's accent is the most bizarre thing I'd ever heard - until I heard her father's) the whole thing starts to disintegrate before your eyes. Oh, and that's before you even start hammering all the individual nails in the Noir coffin.

In short: I hated it. It came off like the worst kind of noir pastiche, like a totally self-conscious, self-important mess. It took all the simplicity and beauty of a pure noir crime novel and made it laughable. And there were people laughing. Believe me. And not when they should have been.

True film noir is a state of mind that you can only achieve by carefully building the elements, by feeding the beast. You cannot force it. 'L.A Confidential' did it with passion and balls, 'Sin City' did it with style and humour and guts, but both achieved the genre - that perfectly pitched black tone - with seemingly effortless ease and a real, innate understanding of what noir truly is. And I'll give you a clue: it ain't filtered light through venetian blinds.

I haven't said too much about the movie have I? Or the plot? The complete massacre of Ellroy's carefully constructed thread? The reduction of an icon - 'The Black Dahlia' herself - into some doe-eyed, ill-educated little slut that we are...what? Supposed to feel some kind of connection to? Supposed to understand? Did Josh Friedman only read the cliff-notes? 'The Black Dahlia' is about obsession, obsession with something no-one - not Lee, not Bucky, not Madeleine - truly knows or understands. The Dahlia as a person is unimportant. Who she was in life is less than irrelevant. It's what she means and what she comes to mean to each of them that is the key to the story: their obsession with a mystery that not one of them can ever solve, because the beautiful Elisabeth Short is dead and can no longer speak.

Someone, somewhere missed the point. I'm only sorry they had to use my favourite novel to do it.

Part of me was in love with this movie, so let's hear from that part first. Shot on DV, the movie has a wonderfully - and very purposefully - dated quality to it, despite being set (presumably) in modern day. It has Mann's signature all over in - a big pink 80s graffiti tag that covers the whole thing from start to finish - and he sets the scene of the 'real L.A' with a sure touch that leaves you hungry to see the place for yourself.

The film is one long, neon night-scene, skyscrapers forming the backdrop to every shot - most memorably as Tom Cruise stalks his final victim against a vast wallpaper of twinkling lights - and you sense Mann's love for this place in every second.

Deliciously, Tom Cruise plays very much against type, although Vincent's cool facade is not dissimilar to Cruise's suave, wise-cracking 80s persona. He's slick, smooth and smart, with a seemingly endless store of dry, sarcastic banter - but behind his jet-black shades his eyes are dead. As Jamie Foxx's character Max observes 'something that normal people have got, you're just...missing'. He's a plastic-Cruise, trying to fool his clients and victims into thinking he's wise to the world, when in fact he's the weakest kind of lonely outsider, and all it takes is a s***-scared, kamikaze cabbie to finally see through him.

The part of me that loves Michael Mann for bringing me 'Manhunter' and damaged, beautiful William Petersen, lapped up 'Heat' with a spoon and kissed his feet for giving Russell Crowe 'The Insider' - loves this movie, like I would love anything that paints character and place so vividly. But the part of me that celebrates originality and enjoys being surprised...that part is out at lunch. Considering why anyone would ruin such an otherwise great movie with such a contrived and laboured plot twist: 'OMG!!! He's going after the lawyer!!!!' No s***? Oh so that's what that otherwise completely pointless and overtly sentimental scene at the start was about?

Choosing the Hollywood ending over something that might have left me feeling as pained and hollow and empty as an L.A parking lot at midnight? In a word: lame. And in another - cowardly. I am disappointed in you Michael. And I might not go watch your next film. So there.