Year of Release: 1974Country of Origin: USA
Director: Roman Polanski
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston
Plot outline: A private detective investigating an adultery case stumbles on to a scheme of murder that has something to do with water (IMDb).
Chinatown may be Roman Polanski's best movie. It may be Jack Nicholson's best movie as well, better than Five Easy Pieces or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It starts out seemingly an ordinary detective story and murder mystery. However, the plot gets thicker and thicker as Nicholson unravels a massive real estate scheme and learns who is behind it. Nothing is as it appears, not the wife, the affair, or the suicide. Nicholson knows he has been duped, and is determined to learn the full story, which involves murder, real estate fraud, and an artificial water shortage. His investigation also uncovers terrible family secrets involving the murder victim's wife (Faye Dunaway) and her cantankerous, powerful father (John Huston). Nicholson is well cast as the cynical and hard-working private eye. His character has similarities to Humphrey Bogart's in The Maltese Falcon, but Nicholson's is not as sharp, and is more willing to con his way into gaining information. Likewise, Dunaway's character is similar to that of Mary Astor's in The Maltese Falcon. Both characters seem unwilling to tell the full truth, and claim to love their hired detective, but Dunaway's is much softer and better intentioned. John Huston, more noted as a director than as an actor, gives a great performance as the grasping schemer who also wants the daughter he doesn't deserve to have. Roman Polanski has a great cameo as the enforcer with a knife. He will always be known more for his off-camera life than for the movies that he has directed, but perhaps that isn't as it should be. Chinatown is an outstanding movie, perhaps even the best movie of the 1970s. (BK)
My judgement: **** out of 4 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment