From Hell (2001)

                            FROM HELL
               (a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

    CAPSULE: The Jack the Ripper story is back in the public eye 
    with a new film directed by the Hughes Brothers.  The story 
    is stylishly told and the telling is fairly accurate except 
    for the needless adding of supernatural elements.  In spite 
    of being based on a graphic novel, the film is nearly a remake 
    of 1979's MURDER BY DECREE.  Rating: 7 (0 to 10), 
    +2 (-4 to +4) 

Most people know the name Jack the Ripper, the killer who murdered five prostitutes in London's East End in 1888. It is a little hard to account for what made Jack the Ripper the most famous serial killer of his type of all time. Certainly his nickname helped to capture the public's imagination. The area of London's East End also adds some romance to the story, though as this new version of the story points out, the East End was more squalid than romantic in 1888. Also it happened in England. Somehow, perhaps because of the presence of the media, what happens in Britain or the US becomes much more of a world event than what happens in, say, the Botswana or Indonesia. In any event the Jack the Ripper case has become mythic around the world. The Ripper murders have been the subject of several films. As retellings of the events of the case go, FROM HELL is one of the more accurate. The most obvious deviation from facts of the case history is to take one of the major figures in the investigation, Inspector Frederick George Abberline and cross him with Sax Rohmer's "Dream Detective." Under the influence of opium he receives psychic messages in the form of images relevant to the crime. The real Abberline would probably not have been amused.

London's East End in 1888 already seems like a corner of hell for the prostitutes like Mary Kelly (played by Heather Graham) who ply their sad trade in the streets and alleys. There is hardly enough profit in their work to feed themselves. Making matters worse gangs of thugs shake them down for the little money they do make on threat of being cut with sharp knives. And now someone else really is carving up prostitutes in a series of killings the papers call "the Ripper murders." Inspector Frederick George Abberline (Johnny Depp) is investigating the crimes but does not inspire much confidence in the likes of Mary Kelly. And the fact he gets most of his best clues from opium dreams and absinthe laced with laudanum does not inspire his superiors either. Abberline investigates with the help of Police Sergeant Peter Godley (Robbie Coltrane) whose combination of disdain for his habits and concern for Abberline is one of the best things about FROM HELL.

In this very dark view of late 19th century London Jack the Ripper's cruelty would almost be a redundancy, but he rises above it as the most vicious force of all. Certainly London is a most threatening landscape. It seems to be composed of victims and predators, the latter mostly all with sharp knives. We even have contemporary John Merrick, the famous Elephant Man, thrown into the story.

The production is film on a very large set that apparently was built in the Czech Republic. Peter Deming, who also filmed EVIL DEAD II and recently MULHOLLAND DRIVE, kept the scenery and photography dark to match the tone. The film intentionally dwells on unpleasant images and increasingly more gore. The disagreeable images however do not extend to the female lead who seems unrealistically intact considering the lifestyle she has led as an East End prostitute. That makes her the one actor who is incongruous in a role and it probably because the female lead had to be made appealing to the audience. She is almost as out of place as the horrible song over the end credits. The latter is jarringly badly chosen.

Part of where this version falls down is in its presentation of the Ripper Case as a puzzle. I am told that in the graphic novel by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell on which the film is based that the reader knows from the start who the killer really is. The Hughes brothers (MENACE II SOCIETY) have not taken that approach but intended to leave it as a mystery until the last part of the film. This was not very well done and the real killer is not well concealed. Speaking for myself from the moment of presenting the character who would who would in fact be the Ripper, that was who I fully expected it would be. Terry Hayes and Rafael Yglesias's script while good and professional in some other ways is amateurish at making the story a real puzzle.

Another problem is that there is too much that is familiar in FROM HELL, even given that it is based on a real case. This story is made of factual and fictional elements. Not only almost all of the factual but also many of the fictional elements seem present in a previous film MURDER BY DECREE, which pitted Sherlock Holmes against Jack the Ripper. In that film Holmes used the help of a psychic who sees the murders in his dreams much as Abberline does. Many of the same clues are mentioned in each film. Many of the same clues go unmentioned in each film. It is almost certainly true that MURDER BY DECREE was much of the inspiration for the graphic novel on which FROM HELL was based.

FROM HELL is effective as a macabre history, as a horror story, and a little less so as a mystery. It dependence on the supernatural, however, unnecessarily spoils the credibility of carefully achieved accuracy. I rate it an 7 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.

                                        Mark R. Leeper
                                        mleeper@optonline.net
                                        Copyright 2001 Mark R. Leeper

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X-RAMR-ID: 29921
X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 257576
X-RT-TitleID: 1110176
X-RT-AuthorID: 1309
X-RT-RatingText: 7/10