Very good; great detail.

Rating: 9/10 (30 October 2001)

I really believe that viewing a "making of" for a film can enhance the enjoyment of the actual movie. This is definitely one of those cases. The movie, without knowing anything at all about the history, is very well done. If you like Depp films (Sleepy Hollow, Blow, etc.), you will like this one. It reminds me a lot of Sleepy Hollow if done by the Hughes Bros. It's dark and violent, obviously, with the conditions in the 'ghetto' of London in the late 1800's really done up well. As I said before, though, if you know some of the history and see the making of afterward (I saw the one on HBO) it really enhances the experience. The best thing about the movie is the level of detail. Most of the sets where built from scratch using photos and writings from the period. When you see the movie, you'll realize just how big these sets had to be. Quite impressive for this day and age. All of the killings were portrayed using crime scene analysis and details about how they were done, where they were done and even the position the bodies were found in! Of course, since this is an unsolved crime, there had to be liberties taken with the plot line but I think it was still done very well and could possibly accurate as well. The acting was not the best ever but it did serve it's purpose, it was believable. Overall I'd give the movie a 7.5/10 before seeing the making of special and a 9/10 after.