From Hollywood...

Rating: Null/10 (12 June 2002)

Nonsense from beginning to end.Johnny Depp's miscasting,from being the wrong age to having the wrong accent (Abberline was born in Dorset) wasn't helped at all by the insane fictionalising of his life and the case.
Abberline was a happily-married family man.He was a fine detective operating within a culture of shoddy and morally dubious policework.There's no record of his being a junkie.He died in 1929,aged 86.
The flights of fancy in the case shown are too numerous to mention.A few points:
There's no evidence that the victims knew one another.
The "Royal Jack" theory has been disproven many times over.
The "pentagram" story falls apart if one actually tries marking the murder sites on a street map.
Sir William Gull,by 1888,was almost entirely incapacitated by a severe stroke.(And he didn't die in the asylum following a lobotomy!)
Sir Charles Warren resigned prior to the final murder.
There's precious little evidence that the killer had anything but the most rudimentary anatomical evidence.
Etc,etc,etc...
Once again,we get Hollywood using its financial muscle to produce such a lavish version of events that unquestioning audiences will accept it as soothe and the subject will be off limits to other filmmakers for years to come.
What a great shame.