Memo to Hughes Brothers' analyst: Discuss woman problem

Rating: Null/10 (20 October 2001)

The Hughes brothers' adaptation of Alan Moore's graphic novel
about Jack the Ripper is crudely compelling but hard to respect.
Even seemingly-misogynistic directors like Dario Argento and
Brian DePalma build into their thrillers an awareness of the
taboo-breaking power held by images of vulnerable women being
physically harmed. Their set pieces are not just displays of
virtuosity, but have seismic emotional power. For Albert and Allan
Hughes, the slicing-up of prostitutes is just an opportunity for
another effect, a stick-on decal, an expensive sound cue. The
sound of surgical instruments on raw bone waltzes with strobe-cut
flashes of bloody flesh, staring dead eyeballs, flies rubbing their
hands before dipping into a human feast. The total effect is the
same as that of the brothers' last movie, AMERICAN PIMP--there is
no directorial point of view save that of, "Wow, cool!" The picture
often suggests the souped-up dopiness of Francis Coppola's
DRACULA--though the dialogue often plunges to the level of a
bottom-drawer TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE. Heather Graham,
as the Main Hooker, and Johnny Depp, as a coolio, absinthe-sipping Sherlock Holmes, are made to look like two of
the most beautiful people in the world, which no doubt they are. Ian
Holm, as Queen Victoria's "ordinary physician," gives a
performance of dazzling accomplishment, especially when you
consider he's given lines that would disgrace a Hammer horror
movie. And say a quiet prayer for the marvellous Robbie Coltrane
as the hero's Fat Best Friend: the words he's forced to say are
worse--a hundred times worse.