A strange, occasionally brilliant, occasionally awful work that shows what happens when two off-kilter talents collide – in this case, Brian De Palma’s elegant, operatic film style going mano e mano with James Ellroy’s neurosis-fuelled, testosterone-drunk hyper-noir. Both men are certified perverts, both love stretching things to the limit, but they don’t get along so well. De Palma’s filmmaking in the first half is some of the most beautiful of his career.
As with the novel, the proliferation of subplots and insanity becomes positively surreal; unlike with the book, De Palma can’t hold it together with pure force of will, and it builds to superfluous resolutions. Fiona Shaw’s Grand Guignol performance is something else, whilst Scarlett Johansson is bottomless in her ineptitude here.