what a disappointment

Rating: Null/10 (14 February 2002)

We are both johnny depp fans and admire his willingness to take on quirky, but fascinating parts but this was a big letdown.
I have seen his accent etc compared to Dick van Dyke (in Chitty, Chitty Bang Bang), both here and elsewhere and I can only agree. Why do highly paid actors and directors turn in such poor performances. Out of principle, I feel that it is important to try to be realistic. For instance, we used to be shown westerns that had nice,neat towns, with friendly saloon girls. Hey, do you believe the 'wild' west was like that. Or were the towns muddy, filthy, smelled and were the saloon girls pox ridden whores?
So we come to the London of Jack the Ripper. Gin cost a penny a pint, what do you think the whores did? Did they have condoms and penicillin? Yes they bought and drank gin by the pint. So what do you think they looked like?
And Heather Graham, the beautiful whore with the heart of gold? Yeh, go to the Minneapolis St Paul arrests page and look at the street whores arrested today. Is it likely that they have improved? The girls in the Ripper's day would have been approaching the end of their days, literally, so lets have some realism, don't romanticise it, it makes for a much better, really moving movie.
And Abbeline, well he was a country boy, from the backwoods of England, was he an opium addict? he did not die in an opium den. He died of natural causes, in a village in Dorset, in retirement.
The Ripper - lots of theories, very romantic some of them, as shown in this movie, very speculative, no factual evidence has been produced to point to his (or her) identity and the mode of slaughter does not match masonic ritual - there are no female masons so the removal of the vagina etc cannot be defined as a masonic punishment.
The victims - this is the first intimation that I have seen that they knew one another and were a close group.
A rogue mason - interesting, but remember that the freemason vows to support the laws of the land, not to blindly support the monarch, so the blinded rogue as portrayed here would be quickly brought to justice..
The Hughes brothers and Johnny Depp, have let themselves down with this flawed production.