Stylish and intriguing--one hell of a ride!!!

Rating: 7/10 (30 May 2002)

When I saw the previews my first thought was "The Hughes Brothers directed this?" No offense, they're great at what they do. "Menace 2 Society" and "Dead Presidents" are both very good movies, but how are they gonna pan out directing a period piece? Well, this isn't a period piece in the conventional sense. Most of the time when you think "period piece" you think about something along the lines of "Sense and Sensibility." "From Hell" is more like a modern day crime thriller/horror flick taking place in the late 1800's. The sets and costumes fit the period, but the style is modern.
I knew nothing about the Jack the Ripper murders previous to viewing the movie, so I found this movie entertaining as well as informative. And the DVD contains a couple of documentaries about the real Ripper murders. Like many historians said, there were many suspects, but they never really found out who was the real Jack the Ripper. So the Hughes Brothers had a little bit of artistic liberty in creating the story. The plot twist is really neat, I never expected *namesake* to be the killer. But other than the Ripper's true identity, the Hughes stayed strict to how the rest of the murders were committed.
I was surprised to find out that there are in fact a lot of historical inaccuracies present--at least that's what it says in the "goofs" section, they could be wrong. According to the featurette, the Hughes Brothers were sticklers for detail. But who cares anyway? So what if they did get a few things wrong? Is there anybody watching this movie that was actually around during the 19th century? The sets look magnificent and so do the costumes. That's all I care about.
I'm glad the Hughes cast Johnny Depp in the lead role. He's absolutely perfect at anything he does, never failing to give a vibrant, Oscar-worthy performance. So him being the star was one of my main motivations for seeing this movie. I read that actors like Brad Pitt and Sean Connery were considered for the role. Well, no one can fit the part better than Johnny Depp. His English accent is perfect, but I wasn't worried he wouldn't be able to pull it off--he's Johnny Depp, he can pull off anything! Who I was surprised about was Heather Graham. Though she's often good at what she does, she usually does fluff films and I was surprised that she was able to fluently pull off the English accent as well as deliver a fully convincing performance. When I rented the movie, the clerk said to me "Just to let you know: There are certain historical flaws in the movie...like there were no prostitutes back then who looked like Heather Graham. In fact, they didn't even look like women." Well, Heather did seem a little misplaced among the rest of the prostitutes, who did in fact look as ugly as the real prostitutes during the period, but I was willing to suspend disbelief. Despite that mild casting error, her performance was convincing. Robbie Coltrane is amusing as Depp's sidekick, and they have an interesting chemistry. Also among the great cast of English actors are Ian Holm and Ian Richardson.
The effects are gory, but not gratuitous. The Hughes Brothers did leave enough to the audience's imagination. If you have an extremely weak stomach, you'll definitely cringe and maybe hurl, but if not you should be fine. But I didn't really look at it as a horror film perse. I thought of it more as a murder mystery, though many will probably think of it more along the lines of horror. But even if you think of it as horror, it's not slice-and-dice "Friday the 13th" horror. It's horror with a story--a very good one. I was intrigued throughout, especially since I knew nothing about the Ripper murders. And there are some nice touches of comic relief. I love the scene in which The Ripper says, "One day people will look back and say I gave birth to the 20th century." Johnny Depp pulls out a gun and replies, "You're not going to see the 20th century."
Those who know a lot about The Ripper murders will probably complain about the littlest of details, and be very cynical in approaching the movie, but I found it to be a wild ride. It's intriguing, it's stylish and extremely well-acted. I'm not asking for much more!
My score: 7 (out of 10)