Everyone has a photographic memory! Some people simply don't have film.
Everyone has a photographic memory! Some people simply don't have film.
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The tale of Jack the Ripper lives on….
London 1888, the streets are dark and lit only by gas lamps! The pubs are packed and Queen Victoria is on the English throne! Life is for most, a squalid existence.
Prostitutes work the streets at night, and in particular the White-chapel area of London town seems to have plenty of ‘unfortunates’.
Mary Kelly (Heather Graham) seems to be the lass in charge of the handful of friends who are being persecuted by a local gang, demanding a sum of £1 a week for their protection! Should they not pay - they lose their lives – Easy as that!
After many a string warning, the ‘unfortunates’ (as the film describes the prostitutes), begin to wane off one by one!
The dimly lit streets of London in 1888 are ideal for striking terror into the people who lived then. Each alleyway has many hidden cubby-hole, in which anyone can hide to take advantage of the next person walking along it. And this film takes advantage of that fact!
Johnny Depp plays Inspector Fred Abberline, who is put in charge of this now serial ‘murder hunt’.
Each unfortunate is sought out, each given a small bunch of grapes, and then savagely killed. Following which the person who carries these killings out then removes the unfortunates ‘womanhood’. The grapes are quite significant in the film as only rich people could afford them in those days!
Inspector Abberline has developed a liking for opium, which he uses regularly. As he delves into the circumstances surrounding the deaths, he begins to suspect that the killer belongs to the royal family of the time!
It soon comes to his attention courtesy of Sir William Gull (Ian Holmes) that the prince has syphilis, which will eventually kill him! The prince had a liking for the unfortunates, so much so that he actually marries one and they have a child! But what exactly did happen to the future king?
Luckily he’s wife is found and sent to a ‘mental home’ where she has a new form of treatment carried out on her.
Following more killing of the friendship circle and add the fact that the inspector has now fallen in love: He is taken off the case, he is getting to close for comfort and no one likes it.
The film unrolls into a very entertaining film, which I enjoyed quite a bit. It did have some faltering factors such as:
· Why did the Inspector have to be on opium, it added nothing to the story other than the fact that of his ‘visions’ which could have been explained elsewhere. · Why did they have to create a love story between the inspector and the unfortunate? It did absolutely nothing for the film! · Johnny Depp’s London accent. While he obviously did his best, it seemed clear that he wasn’t comfortable speaking so. It drew away from the film, which would have been better done with a real Londoner!
The film was made in Prague, and a creation of the White chapel area was made on a 20-acre site, to recreate what life was life in the Victorian days. Streets with cobblestones, dimly lit gas lamps, and people with nothing to do hanging around on street corners, just about sum it up!
The film is quite predictable, and the ‘killer’ is obvious soon after he first appearance in the film.
It seems to be an American attempt at a British film, which didn’t fully work for me: However that said it was enjoyable and I would watch it again!
Certified at 18 (which was another bewilderment to me a 15 would of sufficed I felt), the film runs for about 2 hours
Thanks for reading - Dave
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(Dec 31st, 2002)
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