Rating- * * * * (4/5)
This one definitely fell below the radar last year. I suspect that it’s because of the name; people are not generally drawn to movies about evil, and rightfully so. However, now that you are reading this review you should know that this movie is not about hell or the devil or evil in general. It’s about Jack the Ripper, the first famous serial killer of the twentieth century. Well, ok, maybe Jack the Ripper could be considered evil, but my point is that this movie is about more than just showing you something evil and bad. The movie stars Johnny Depp (one of my favorite actors) as a Scotland Yard detective who has a somewhat supernatural intuition that he obtains by using opium. His latest case has been trying to solve the murders of several local prostitutes who all seem to have the same killer. The movie bases its theory of who Jack the Ripper really was on actual evidence. The majority of the movie involves Depp investigating the murders one by one just after we have witnessed them through very Hitchcock-like sequences where little is seen but much is implied. The Hughes Brothers, who usually direct urban dramas like Boyz N’ The Hood, did a good job showing the gloomy, dark atmospheres of turn-of-the-century London. All the best scenes in the movie, however involve the Freemasons, the power wielding secret society that is charged with protecting the lives and image of the royal family at all cost. The members seem to be virtually every powerful man in London and the frustration their alliance causes for Depp is the central conflict of the film. The Freemason conspiracy along with several other parallel storylines wind their way through and around each other until they meet in a fantastic climax. If you can stomach the violence, which is mostly off-screen but pretty graphic nonetheless, this movie is definitely worth seeing.