From Hell (2001)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2001
	Director: The Hughes Brothers (Menace II Society, The Book of Eli)
	Actors: Johnny Depp (The Ninth Gate), Heather Graham (Austin Powers: the Spy Who Shagged me), Ian Holm (The Lord of the Rings, Alien)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 29.11.2014, DVD, Home cinema
Synopsis: In 1888 London, the Opium-addict inspector Abberline (Depp) is on charge of solving the famous Jack the Ripper case. To gather information he gets closer to the prostitute Mary Kelly (Graham).
Review: I re-discovered this movie in my old pile of DVDs, and was interested by watching it again for several reasons. Like when watching The Ninth Gate, I wanted to appreciate Johnny Depp in his pre-Pirates of the Carribean years. Also I had a good memory of the movie from when I watched it about 6-7 years-ago in this French edition that offers a nice thick paper cover and extras like a documentary on Absinthe that I found particularly interesting at the time. Unfortunately I noticed this time the rather poor quality of the image and sound, and I regret not having watched it in Blu-ray, which could have increased its rating of one point. Besides the excellent performances by Johnny Depp and Ian Holm (I like to re-discover him in more and more movies), the movie had other reasons to succeed: it is adapted from a graphic novel by Alan Moore (Watchmen) which translates into a very original and new take at the classic Jack The Ripper story. This solid original material was adapted for this big screen by the gifted Hugues Brothers from which I also liked Menace II Society (and its soundtrack) and The Book of Eli. And they did a good job at it: the London they depict seems extremely realistic and shady (again, I missed the HD to appreciate fully the effort, especially during the many dark scenes), reminding me of the Sherlock Holmes story that I am reading and that take place ten years-later. The gore parts are well managed (we don't see too much of them but we guess enough thanks to the sound effects) and most importantly the twisted psyche of some characters very well rendered I found.
Rating: 7 /10