The devil made 'em do it. That's the only reason we can figure why dark detective (Johnny Depp) and the cleanest, cutest streetwalker we've seen in a long time (Heather Graham) mucked their ways through these two hours of gory murders, non-sequitur scenes and an underdeveloped romance. The macabre movie graphically illustrates a popular theory on why Jack the Ripper committed the world's first ritual serial killings in Victorian England.
Unfortunately, the great-looking--and historically accurate--story is often slower and more brooding than the night fog and often detoured by 19th-century sensations like sanitarium oddities and opium-induced visions. So, by the time the directing Hughes Brothers finally get around to whodunit, it's difficult to give a bubonic-plague-carrying rat's ass.