(Rated R, 122 mins.)
Yet another take on the infamous Jack the Ripper, who made his name slaughtering prostitutes in Victorian London. This time there’s a chilling alleged conspiracy involving the highest powers in England, and it’s up to Johnny Depp, starring as Inspector Fred Abberline, to unravel it. When we meet him, he’s smoking in an opium den — maybe they should have called it “Jack the Tripper.” In fact, the movie often plays like an opium dream, full of paranoia, spooky fantasies, and an unintentionally comical love interest embodied (and how) by Heather Graham, as a hooker whose relationship with Inspector Abberline may be more than professional. The film comes off as a noisy attempt to be the ultimate anti-Merchant/Ivory. Going for a kind of Victorian-period-piece-meets-horror-film, the Hughes Brothers, who previously directed “Menace to Society” and “Dead Presidents,” wind up with a muddle. At least they got the title right.
