Devil's Work (From Hell (DVD))

Member Name: xBorgx

Product:	From Hell (DVD)
Date:	25/06/09 (67 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Dark, eerie, well craft and acted.

Disadvantages: Not too many

Inspector Fred Abberline: 'You're not going to see the twentieth century.'

He is, of course, talking to Jack the Ripper when he finally tracks him down, but sadly before this happens, the Ripper brutally murders over a handful of prostitutes.

From Hell (2001) is a 'suggestion' of what might have happened in the late nineteenth century when Jack the Ripper committed those horrendous crimes. It stars the great Johnny Depp (You know him of course... okay he stared in Edward Scissorhands, Sleep Hollow, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and Robbie Coltraine (Cracker, Harry Potter) as the major investigators into the crime. Depp is Inspector Fred Abberline, the opium addicted policeman with the 'visions' and Coltraine is his sidekick.

Directed by the Hughes brothers (Albert and Allen), this is one of the many alternative stories to the Ripper legend, this one which all the victims actually know each other. Their friend Ann is married and has a child with a man called Albert, but little do they all know, including Ann herself, that Albert is actually 'Prince' Albert. The government intervene, kidnap Ann and her child and she is gruesomely deemed insane, lobotomised and put into an asylum while the baby is put into an orphanage.

The rest of the gang and then hunted down through Whitechapel and butchered in some pretty horrific ways.

Based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, this is an interesting look at what 'might' have happened over a hundred years ago. Also horrific is the way in which these people lived in what is not 'that' long ago - woman turning to prostitution just to survive. Pimps hounding then.

Depp and Coltraine investigate the crimes, using Depp's visions and a guide.
If anyone was to ask my how the acting was, then I would have to say that it was good. Depp's cockney accent is fun to hear, and he is his ever-brilliant self. Coltraine is his usually brilliant and the prostitutes are good, notably Heather Graham who plays Mary Kelly as the last on the prostitutes to be killed (or is she? I will say no more...)

Main Cast:

Johnny Depp .... Inspector Fred Abberline
Heather Graham .... Mary Kelly
Ian Holm .... Sir William Gull
Robbie Coltrane .... Sergeant Peter Godley
Ian Richardson .... Sir Charles Warren


Other bits:

122 minutes.
Screenplay Terry Hayes and Rafael Yglesias.


This review is also featured on Ciao UK, written by me as Borg...

Summary: A great take on the Ripper legend...