A sorry mess

Rating: Null/10 (11 February 2002)

From Hell has plenty of acting talent, and the sets look nice, but the Hughes brothers are clearly out of their depth.
It is obvious from the early scene of the prostitutes talking in the street that they are badly in need of an English director to say `once more, but this time make it sound real'. It is a feature of directors working outside their own culture that they can't see beyond the accent, to whether the actor is giving a good performance.
The two greatest failings for me are:
Johnny Depp's accent. Why would a police inspector in Victorian London have a cockney accent? A man of any standing, even a bobby on the beat, would adopt a refined accent, no matter what his background.
His `detective' work. The inspector makes the most ludicrous logical jumps, which somehow lead him in the right direction. Because he finds grapes on the victims, he deduces that the Jack the Ripper is a wealthy man, because `no-one in Whitechapel would be able to afford grapes'. No chance, then, that the grapes might be stolen, a present from a rich person to the murderer, fell off the back of a lorry, etc etc.
In all, I felt this film was a badly-researched mess, with very little logic, and no suspense.