Bloody hell! (From Hell (DVD))

Member Name: george_lazenby

Product:	From Hell (DVD)
Date:	18/02/02 (46 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Atmosphere, supporting cast

Disadvantages: Lead performances, accents from the Dick Van Dyke school of acting

Jack the Ripper should probably not be considered about the cinema's pre-eminent true-life serial killer - that disreputable crown should go to Ed Gein, who inspired such classics as 'The Silence of the Lambs', 'Psycho' and 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. The films that have featured Whitechapel's least favourite son have in the main been crap - a couple of invented Sherlock Holmes movies, some dismal horror movies (including one starring Michael Caine before his recent renaissance). The only good one I can think of is 'Pandora's Box', a film made in 1921, released at a time when people might have actual memories of the killings.

The Hughes Brothers, writer / directors of 'hood drama 'Menace II Society' and the underrated masterpiece about the black experience of city life and the Vietnam War 'Dead Presidents', have gone back to the ghetto for the second decent Ripper movie; the only thing is, the ghetto is London's East End in the 1880s. It's based on Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's graphic novel which I haven't read, but understand to be a stunning dissection of the tabloid society which Jack the Ripper helped to create; the movie isn't quite as complex, but it's a decent thriller. This means that in terms of what it could have been, it's a disappointment, but as a night out, it's probably worth it.

If you haven't seen Bob Clark's lacklustre 'Murder by Decree', or the book that it was based on, I'll be careful over the plot of 'From Hell' because it uses the same theory, and it's framed as a pretty good mystery. Frederick Abberline (Johnny Depp) is a drug-addicted police inspector who uses psychic visions to solve cases; his powers are tested as a group of prostitutes are savagely killed on the streets of Whitechapel. From the start, it's clear that the conspiracy involves members of the Establishment, the police and
the aristocracy, and Abberline quickly realises that identifying the killer is only the beginning of his problems.

At times, 'From Hell' feels like a Victorian James Ellroy adaptation - real characters are mixed in with fictional ones. The murders are recreated with a close attention to factual detail, and famous names (John Merrick the Elephant Man, Queen Victoria) rub shoulders with real people connected to the Ripper killings; William Gull the Queen's surgeon (Ian Holm), the coachman John Netley (Jason Flemyng), the Duke of Clarence (Mark Dexter). Even Abberline existed, though he probably wasn't a laudanum-loving clairvoyant, and he wasn't a Londoner. The attention to historical detail is almost pedantic, and despite the fact that the whole film was shot in Czechoslovakia, the film conjures up a sense of place and atmosphere, right down to the use of accurate street and pub names. However, the emphasis on dry-ice fog does sometimes make real locations look like sets.

The explanation of the murders is a popular one, and though it's one of the less likely suggestions, the killer finally unmasked here is almost certainly the guilty man, even if his motives were less elaborate. This doesn't matter, as the plot is fascinating, and for a cynic like me, very persuasive. And besides, what 'From Hell' really gets right is its role as a nasty thriller. The dank streets of Whitechapel genuinely seem like the corridors of Hell, and the Hughes brothers manage to communicate the force of the Ripper murders, their combination of an obviously intelligent mind operating with an unspeakable combination of sadism and precision.

This really isn't a movie for people whose stomachs turn at the sight of blood; some of the Ripper's excesses are genuinely too horrible to be depicted in a mainstream film, and the worst things in 'From Hell' are generally glimpsed in long shot, out of focus, over someone's
shoulder. I think that the most unpleasant scene is actually completely bloodless, with the Ripper crouched over a victim we can't see, his unseen hands committing unthinkable crimes behind his cape - you can't see what he does and you don't see the result, but it's horrible all the same. Nevertheless, there are flashes of intense violence and a huge amount of blood sprayed in all directions.

Where the film really falls is in the performances - Depp looks the part as a tortured poetic soul, but his accent is mannered and synthetic, sounding false in a cast composed almost entirely of Brits. Meanwhile, Heather Graham is a beautiful woman, but she can't do accents and is the least convincing cinematic prostitute since Julia Roberts. There's generally a sense of gorblimey guvnor apples and pears, very much the American view of how cockneys talk - it's like Dick Van Dyke is a model to be emulated. The day is saved by everyone else: Coltrane as Depp's Shakespeare-spouting sidekick, the gaggle of quarrelsome streetwalkers, Ian Holm, and Ian Richardson as the bigoted police chief with incredible sideburns.

The film lacks a genuine feeling of dread and fear, but it's still quite gripping, and I think it is persuasive in making its point about the way in which ordinary people are at the mercy of powerful forces which they cannot control, that those with power and money treat those below them like animals.

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