Nov 10, 2001 01:38 AM
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(Updated Nov 10, 2001 04:27 AM)
“From Hell” is an apt name for a movie that is a pain-in-the-rear to evaluate. I have rarely walked in to see a film with such a sincere predisposition to like it, and had to work so hard to even tolerate it. Yet, for its many, many flaws, it does have its redeeming qualities.
Conceptually, “From Hell” is the effort by African-American directors Albert and Allen Hughes to link the “’Hood” of the Los Angeles ghetto (see their 1993 effort “Menace II Society'') with the underbelly of Victorian England -- London’s squalid Eastside in the late 19th century.
On the surface, the rationale makes sense – the Hughes Brothers could justify taking on this period project because they could see a thematic link between two violent and corrupt urban areas more than 100 years and several bad accents apart, yet joined by the truth that they are both the ugly stepchildren of their societies. The one (in their film) is comprised of the white trash Queen Victoria’s Empire builders don’t acknowledge exists, and the other (from the Hughes brothers' background) is comprised of the American blacks in ghetto neighborhoods who still believe that mostly white authority figures would rather ignore them. In either case, if they all end up killing themselves, the theme might go, who’s to care?
THE MOVIE:
The brothers' device to achieve their parallel is to base the movie’s narrative on the true story of Jack the Ripper, the notoriously bestial serial killer of prostitutes in London’s Whitechapel district. Inspector Frederick Abbeline (played by a predictably effective Johnny Depp) is an opium-addicted detective whose principal value to the investigation into “the Ripper” murders of prostitutes in 1888 London is that he sees the murders in advance in his drug-induced hallucinations. (I suppose if Sherlock Holmes could snort cocaine in order to see the light, Abbeline could know the Tiger.) Robbie Coltrane plays Abbeline’s over-the-top protective and gentle partner, a man so kind and warm and gentle in his stereotyped gruffness that he clearly has no future in London’s turn-of-the-century police department.
For the very effective first third of the movie, the pair wander the bleak landscape of the underbelly of Victorian London, turning up brutally eviscerated corpses at every turn, and rubbing elbows with all sorts of unsavory characters worthy of Dickens.
Unfortunately, too soon we end up having to get to know prostitute Mary Kelly (Heather Graham), whose bright red hair and freckles, glistening white teeth, heart of gold, and pathetic attempt at a low-class London accent are painfully out of place in Whitechapel. Furthermore, as the list of victims piles up, the film suddenly dispenses with any pretense of sticking to what is known about Jack the Ripper and lurches into an unseemly plot that carries us to a far-fetched denouement that was never properly established.
THE YIN AND THE YANG:
There’s no doubt that the Hughes Brothers understand mood. Their London is an effectively-set miasma of social isolation, despair, drugs, brutality and pain. In Depp they have a skilled actor with an alternately dreamy presence and steely intensity who easily moves in and out of the fog and the primal mud of Whitechapel. And in the story of the Ripper they have a fascinating subject whose exploits are deftly portrayed just gorily enough without being gratuitous, and whose precedence of the modern serial killer is clearly noted.
But “From Hell” fails to grip the viewer’s soul and heart. Its social commentary is predictable, stifled by wooden dialogue and characters who have no excuse for not being fleshed out in a 2-hour movie. Despite the atmosphere of foreboding, it is surprisingly not scary even with the eerie setting. And the plot suddenly dissembles, unconvincingly taking us into the highest levels of the London Police Department and the Royal Family. Dragged down in the wake of too many creaky twists, predictable dialogue and detached characters is veteran actor Ian Holm, whose interesting role as the Royal surgeon is ultimately strait-jacketed beyond salvage.
“From Hell” is a movie worth seeing for viewers who like atmosphere and historical settings, and who would love to dig deep for parallels between the reality the Hughes brothers faced growing up and the historical London they have uncovered.
But it’s not worth going out of your way for.
