From Hell
reviewed by: ReelReviewz@aol.com

MOVIE BIASES: Have read a lot about the (bitter) Hughes Bros., curious to see them out of the hood, but will I be able to stomach Jack the Ripper?

MAJOR PLAYERS: Johnny Depp (Sleepy Hollow), Heather Graham (Say It Isn't So), and directors Albert and Allen Hughes (Dead Presidents).

To hear the Hugheses tell it, they ain't mad. I mean who would be mad after New Line raped them for only $45,000 apiece for their white hot directing debut "Menace 2 Society," a film that grossed some $29 million at the box office alone? Who would be mad after not having worked for some four years, as they didn't? Who would be mad that they have had their career pigeon-holed as "boyz n the hood"-like directors? Certainly not the Hugheses. Instead with "From Hell," they took their rep and turned it upside its head - to some grisly, exciting, but ultimately unrewarding results.

Inspector Fred Abberline (Depp) is a ganja-smoking, absinthe-guzzling, suicidal, train wreck of a London detective, dispatched to solve the prostitute murders of the first modern serial killer, Jack the Ripper. Guided by his drug induced visions, Abberline falls into the company of a comely, brassy "unfortunate," a streetwalker named Mary Kelly (Graham) who knows more about these murders than even she seems to realize. As Jack's pattern becomes apparent, pressure from the police force mounts, and he begins to fall for Mary Kelly, Abberline is under the gun to stop the killer and save the woman he loves from a deadly fate.

A lot has been said about how "pretty" Johnny Depp looks. As a heterosexual male who never has been a good arbiter of what constitutes a "pretty man," I will say that even despite his best efforts to slum it up, Depp still looks a bit above it all. His lazy, relaxed gaze doesn't have the intense disdain for life that Keanu Reeves' character did in "Hardball;" instead, we feel sorry for this broken, hallucinogenic, suicidal little man. But even despite his hazy exterior, Depp's Abberline has a caustic strength of conviction that, at times, borders on priggish audacity. I have to say, I love him for it - that and for that decent go at a British accent. Heather Graham, once again, is window dressing, while Robbie Coltrane (The World is Not Enough) provides affable supporting direction to Abberline's more obscure instincts.

The real stars of the show are the Hugheses. They have effectively produced a turn of the century London in all its dank, brooding, graying squalor. As they have said in many an interview, the Hugheses "know the ghetto," even a 19th century English one at that. Employing a brooding pace, conspiracy theories galore, and some freaky sound effects matched with blood red skies (the movie's one, breathtaking visual), the Hughes Brothers definitely have set a suspenseful, eerie mood. But by bludgeoning the audience with extraneously gory shots and an anti-climatic ending that just kinda sits there and sucks, this movie doesn't reach its full potential. But don't tell the Hughes Brothers that. They just might get mad.

@@@ REELS (THREE REELS)
It's pretty hot - go give it a shot.
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BIASES: mid 20s black male; frustrated screenwriter who favors action, comedy, and glossy, big budget movies over indie flicks, kiddie flicks, and weepy Merchant Ivory fare
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