Movie #69 – Chinatown (1974) - 130 min, cert 15.
J.J. Giddes (Jack Nicholson) is a private investigator in LA. He is hired by a woman to investigate her husband whom she believes is having an affair. Giddes finds evidence of the affair only to discover that his client was an imposter and the press have now got hold of his photographs. He soon becomes embroiled in a complex plot that he gradually pieces together as the film progresses.
This is Nicholson’s fourth appearance in the list, and his fourth fantastic performance. A good job too, because he’s in every scene.
I started watching this yesterday, but was too tired and kept nodding off, and this is not the sort of film that forgives such inattention, so I gave up after 40 minutes. When I picked it up tonight, I started again from the top and I’m glad I did. The plot is complex, and if you still want to know what’s going on at the end, then you need to have been concentrating for the last two hours.
I was a little disappointed by the ending. I believe Roman Polanski made this movie not long after his wife was murdered, so he wasn’t in a very happy place when he made this, and it shows in the rather bleak ending.
Score – 7/10. A decent detective yarn, with a solid performance from Nicholson. The plot was perhaps a little too intricate, and the ending too downbeat for my taste.
Next up is Life Is Beautiful, yet another Holocaust movie, but a slightly more light-hearted approach if such a thing is possible.
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