HBO has an equally commendable and frustrating history of making well-chosen but flat and conventional biographical films about controversial, larger-than-life figures (Roy Cohn, Josephine Baker, Don King, Walter Winchell). These biopics tend to be distinguished by an occasional brilliant performance (Ving Rhames' magnetic King, James Woods' devastating take on Cohn) but undone by a strangely homogeneous approach to their subjects' lives. Introducing Dorothy Dandridge is, for better or worse, a fairly typical HBO biopic, telling the relentlessly sad life of its heroine, an actress and singer best known for her Academy Award-nominated role in 1954's Carmen Jones. It's a familiar story: After her big break, Dandridge's life and career went downhill, with miserable marriages, poor career choices, and racism all hastening her nightmare descent into booze and pills. In theory, it's a terrific role, and it's easy to see why star and executive producer Halle Berry fought for nearly a decade to get the film made. But she's not a forceful enough performer to convey Dandridge's fiery presence: As played by Berry, Dandridge is a passive force in her own life, content to have decisions made for her by a series of powerful men, including Otto Preminger (played here by Klaus Maria Brandauer), who directed her in Carmen Jones and Porgy And Bess. Director Martha Coolidge (Real Genius, Rambling Rose) does a nice job with most of her actors, particularly Brent Spiner as Dandridge's angelic, long-suffering manager (who, not coincidentally, wrote the book upon which the film is based), and manages a few poignant moments here and there. But she's sabotaged by the familiar nature of her material. It's very much a "good enough" movie, and Dandridge deserves better.