10 Director's Cuts We'd Rather See Than Snyder's Justice League

James Ellroy's landmark novel surrounding the brutal unsolved true murder of actress Elizabeth Short is the first in a series of four novels known as the L.A. Quartet. At one point or another since publication, all four of them have been in various stages of production in Hollywood, with only the first and third, L.A. Confidential, making it to screen.

What made the latter so successful, almost winnning best picture against Titanic in what many consider an upset, is Brian Helgeland and director Curtis Hanson's ability to take the novel's spanning, byzantine plot and streamline it so masterfully. It's somewhat confounding that a director as capable as Brian De Palma, working from a script by A History of Violence's Josh Olson, could make such an incomprehensible mess out of Dahlia.

The novel, after all, is far less complicated than Confidential's epic story. And though some critics praised its ambition and visuals, there's no question De Palma's noir is unsatisfying on almost every level, with no story arc having any successful dramatic payoff. But we had every reason to think otherwise going into the theatre. James Ellroy, notably critical of previous film adaptations of his work save for Confidential, had praised De Palma's three-hour cut, claiming it was a faithful retelling of the novel and an excellent interpretation of the mental breakdown suffered by the books lead detective (Josh Hartnett).

By the time the film was released and trimmed down by an hour, however, Ellroy had stopped commenting at all.