Stream it now Chinatown 1974

 

Perfect Movie. Film Noirs are my favorite genre and this is certainly one of the best ones ever made.

This movie has it all. The script is bold, full of cynical dialogue, well developed characters, a good mystery, and fatalistic story telling. Nicholson's performance is intelligent and edgy. What exactly did Polansky do to make this film seem so perfect? Every scene works and moves the story along like one of those little metal balls in a labyrinth missing any pitfalls.

I fell into this 1930's Los Angeles and followed a detective through to the end of a perilous and tragic case and felt like I was reading a classic noir novel put to screen without a hitch. Huston is well cast and is unforgettable as the father of Dunaway's character who by the way is also fantastic.

I guess this is what happens when brilliant writing, directing and acting come together. It doesn't happen a lot, but when it does, it reminds me what this art form can do.

Roman Polanski at his finest. This is the movie that defined noir-film genre.

The movie tells the story of the private investigator J. J. Gittes, who is hired by a rich woman called Evelyn Mulway who suspects her husband of adultery. He takes some pictures of Mr Mulwray with his young mistress, and publishes them in the next morning newspaper. But then, the real Evelyn Mullray appears and serves him with a lawsuit, claiming that she never hired him to follow her husband. The plot gets even more intriguing with the misterious death of Mr Mulwray.

The plot is, as you can see, excellent, is so intriguing and misterious from the very begining to the very end and the dialogue was wonderfully written, also Polanski's directing gave an even more misterious look at the film. The performances are scene-stealing specially, of course,from Jack Nicholson's side, an actor who never disappoints.There's almost nothing wrong with the film.

The movie was nominated to eleven Academy Awards, winning one for Best Screenplay. The others nominations were Best Music, Original Dramatic Score ( lost to The Godfather Part 2 ), Best Film Editing ( lost to The Towering Inferno ), Best Sound Mixing ( lost to Earthquake ), Best Costume Design ( lost to The Great Gatsby ), Best Art Direction ( lost to the Godfather Part 2 ), Best Cinematography ( lost to the Towering Inferno ), Best Director ( Polanski, lost to Francis Ford Coppola for The Godfather Part 2 ), Best Actress ( Faye Dunaway, lost to Ellen Burstyn for lice Doesn't Live Here Anymore ) Best Actor ( Nicholson, lost to Art Carney for Harry and Tonto ) and Best Picture ( Lost to The Godfather Part 2 ).

This is a movie that never gets old, and you'll get yourself engaged at the story all the time. 9,3/10 - Excellent

PS: if there's any gramatical errors, please don't mind. I'm not Native english speaker and I'm still learning.

I speant a good part of the day watching movies, first thing I watched was "ChinaTown" which didnt have a hell of alot to do with Chinatown, but god damn this movie was great, I thought I wouldnt like it, but I really got into it. It reminded me of a serious version of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. definately there were parralels.

Jack Nicholson is hilarious in this movie.

Proper Noir. A timeless classic. I wish I had the words.

A brilliant masterpiece.

A noir epic directed by Roman Polanski starring Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, and John Huston, this movie is as close to perfect as it could go, and didn't quite make it because of Chinatown. What I mean by Chinatown is Jake Gittes' (Jack Nicholson's character) dystopia. In the beginning of the movie, we follow Jake, a private eye, as he follows a woman's husband to catch him cheating on her. Eventually, things start to get complicated for Jake, and he ends up getting caught in the husband's murder, the corrupt water business, and in a chase to find the husband's lover. This film's screenplay is the only one in history that can be described as "perfect", because it benefits from its simplistic dialogue and consistency to never talk down to the audience.

The complexity of the plot is enticing and makes it fun to try and guess along with Jake exactly what the answer is to all of the mysteries. What exactly made me give this movie anything less than an 100 is the surprise and unexpectedness of the ending. Through the movie, Jack Gittes occasionally mentions that he had a job back in "Chinatown", and says that everything that happened there was bad. The movie ends in Chinatown, and so everything falls apart in the exact opposite way Jake planned, hence making a symbolic, unforgettable, yet unsatisfying and surprising ending.

Jack Nicholson plays a role that sums up the common man of the 1940s, and is simply amazing as the film progresses as you can see how he becomes more and more obsessed with the mysteries. Faye Dunaway also does a spectacular job as the wife of the husband, and manipulates the emotions of remorse, suspicion, nervousness and misery as well as any master actress would. The actor who stood out for me in this film was actually John Huston, who plays Faye Dunaway's father. He just nails down everything about his character, and makes you completely believe everything that he tries to cover up with lies. It was actually fun to watch him act, and this had to be the highlight of the film for me.

Have no doubt, this is one of the great mystery movies, I just wasn't satisfied with the ending. But you might have a different opinion on that. The acting is top notch, the script is a model of what all scripts should be like, and Roman Polanski succeeds with another classic.

Say what you will about Polanski, but this guy knows how to make a movie. And Chinatown is a damn fine, damn fine movie. Maybe i am just a sucker for neo-noir but i watched Chinatown twice (back to back) when i got it from netflix and i was just enthralled with this movie. The movie takes you to 1930s Los Angeles where a two-bit private eye named J.J Gittes (played by Nicholson in his best role) gets caught in the dirty dealings of the LA water and power companies. The mystery is perfectly crafted due to the great screenplay, and fantastic direction. Faye Dunaway also makes for a perfect femme fatale that goes along with the other great noir elements. A lot of people seem to be upset with the ending, but forget it and remember "...It's chinatown."

I know this is considered a classic but I found it to be a long and plodding story which is held together by Nicholsons performance alone. People call it a crime thriller, tell me where is the thrill?

"Forget it Jake, It's Chinatown"