Film - Philip Kerr is not amused by a historical drama about the Whitechapel murders

Johnny Depp was hailed as the best actor of his generation for his performance in Donnie Brasco; but based on the evidence of some of his other films, it's difficult to see why anyone should rate him at all. The guy has made some spectacularly bad career choices - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Don Juan DeMarco and Sleepy Hollow, to name but three.

The Hughes Brothers, the twins Allen and Albert, are movie-makers whose record for scraping the bottom of the film can is no less remarkable: their second feature, Dead Presidents, resembled their first, Menace II Society, in its near-chemical dependence on cliche and its adolescent fascination with blood and guts.

Add to these three stooges Terry Hayes, an Australian screenwriter of expert mediocrity, mix well with a story that was already showing its age 30 years ago, when Hammer Films was knocking out B-features such as Hands of the Ripper, and what you have is From Hell. I couldn't have put it better myself. The hand of God reaching down into the deepest shit pit of Hades couldn't lift this pretentious film as high as the shelf marked "Complete twaddle".

Do I exaggerate? Perhaps. But it is always exasperating to see tens of millions of dollars wasted by people whose talent falls several dozen IQ points short of the material they have chosen to eviscerate. Shot in the Czech Republic (they should have been), the new film from the Hughes Brothers can at least be credited with pumping a great deal of much-needed hard currency into the local economy, and into keeping a lot of nice British actors off the dole.

Bowler-hatted, sparsely moustached, and looking more than a little like Charlie Chan, Depp plays Inspector Fred Abberline of Scotland Yard who, assisted by Sergeant Peter Godley (Robbie Coltrane), takes charge of the investigation into the Whitechapel murders of 1888. It's a part already played on television with greater distinction and conviction by Michael Caine, on the centenary of the murders; and the Kentucky-born Depp brings no more authority or depth to his role than Dick Van Dyke playing the cheeky-chappy chimney sweep in Mary Poppins, whose risible cockney accent is here recalled.

Perhaps the Hugheses had seen the TV series Cracker before casting Coltrane; but I am more or less certain they must have watched Manhunter and Seven because, not content with giving Abberline an opium habit, they make him a clairvoyant, which enables him to gain an insight into Jack the Ripper's mens rea and modus operandi. And not only do the Hughes Brothers ape David Fincher, the director of Seven, but there's even a dash of David Lynch for good measure, with Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man, making an entirely irrelevant guest appearance.

Indeed, the word derivative hardly seems adequate to describe the borrowing that went on in the writing and making of this nonsense - and Coltrane looks all too aware of the fact. The poor sod delivers his execrable lines ("Don't be a fool, Inspector") with the conviction of a man who's been caught with his pudgy hand in the Hollywood sweet jar.

But the big Scotsman is not the only Brit in this farrago of liver and lights to be caught running towards the door with large handfuls of dollars. Actors as talented as Paul Rhys, Ian Richardson, Terence Harvey, Susan Lynch and Ian Holm, as the Ripper himself (I'm giving nothing away here, as it's obviously him from the start), are all in the same blood-boltered mess. Good luck to them, I say. In my experience, it is always best to treat Hollywood like an Arts Council grant - something that gives you enough money to do something better. That, in this case, would amount to nothing more than an episode of Home and Away.

I hope the likes of Holm and Richardson will not have scuppered their chances of a knighthood, however. After all, I doubt that the present Queen is likely to be very amused by the accusation, made in this film, that Queen Victoria, her great-grandmother, counselled Sir William Gull, the royal surgeon (played by Holm), to carry out the Whitechapel murders. The reason? All the murdered girls had witnessed a marriage between Victoria's grandson, the syphilitic Duke of Clarence, and an East End whore. Let us hope, for the sakes of Messrs Holm and Richardson, that Her Majesty enjoys a chuckle as much as I do, because the moment when Queen Victoria makes her po-faced appearance is, without doubt, the most laughable moment in this preposterous film.

Fifth-form schoolboys, conspiracy nuts and the simple-minded in general will find much to satisfy their negligible intellects in this film. And it says everything about its likely market and much-vaunted period accuracy that the end credits are accompanied by music from that well-known Victorian music-hall turn, Marilyn Manson. Avoid this film as you would avoid a man wearing a top hat and carrying a black bag down a dark alley in Whitechapel.

From Hell (18) is on general release from 8 February

Post your comment

Please note: you will need to login or register before you can comment on the website