'From Hell' (2001)

Rating: 9/10 (25 April 2012)

There are so many things that I love about 'From Hell' that it is difficult to begin somewhere. We can just thank The Hughes Brothers up front for directing this masterpiece, be it that their entire theory on Jack The Ripper was false or not, is arbitrary to the fact that 'From Hell' is well-made, well-acted, and very highly underrated. This probably got lost for many people in a flush of Johnny Depp films that would invade popular culture for the next decade to come, but fresh off the heels of making Tim Burton's 1999 'Sleepy Hollow', Johnny Depp plays this Sherlock Holmes-esque character well, and intriguingly, even if the accent might seem a little over-the-top, a decade later.
The art direction is also highly notable, based on the graphic novel, which I haven't read, I can just imagine that there are plenty of panels in the comic depicting the ominous blood red London skyline. Beautiful. The costumes and set pieces are all very nicely done as well. Robbie Coltrane is great as Depp's sidekick, and underrated also much of the time. Heather Graham isn't anything spectacular, and she's no Christina Ricci, but she fills her shoes well. Ian Holm is spectacular, and this was probably my first real introduction to him.
You will probably have to watch this film several times to really get the entire gist of it, because the plot could seem complicated if you aren't familiar with the theory The Hughes Brothers used. Indeed, I hope one day Depp can possibly conjure up an idea with someone as visionary as The Hughes Brothers yet again and bring us another true classic type, such as films like 'Sleepy Hollow' and 'From Hell' are. In my opinion, this is an absolute forgotten masterpiece of recent cinema, and highly overlooked.
FROM HELL -----9/10.