Chinatown | | Cast : | Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston | | Director : | Roman Polanski | | Studio : | Paramount Studio | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | June 20, 1974 | | DVD Released Date : | August 09, 2005 | | Language : | French (Dubbed), English (Original Language), English (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 09, 2005 | | Summary | A real film noir gem | Content
 | This film sums up what film noir is all about. Style and form takes your eye and misleads you into thinking you know what's going on. Nicholson's Gittes character is fantastic - sure he plays the tough hard boiled PI but when it boils down to it - he is caught in a game far far greater than he can understand and the reality of the stakes involved only dawn on him at the very end. John Huston gives a lesson in how to be evil - that is you never show it on the surface. And Polanski's direction is as good as anyone in the history of cinema - his composition, his attention to detail and knowledge of how each character would play out the story.
this is what great cinema is all about |
| Rating | | | Date | August 08, 2005 | | Summary | What's all the fuss about? | Content
| I don't get why Chinatown is such a well respected movie. It is slooooow. Jack Nicholson plays Jack Nicholson. Every scene is long and drawn out often with no dialogue to keep it interesting. Half an hour could have been shaved off this with no real loss. I mean do we really have to watch him climbing over a chainlink fence for 5 minutes. No! But the biggest beef I have is with the direction. The filming of the ending scene which everyone always says is so great is all jumbly and amateur looking.
I never really got to form an attachment to any of the main characters, they seemed more like modern actors self-consciously trying to embody certain film noir types.
If you really want film noir go to the true source-- forties and fifties films like Panic in the Streets, the Asphalt Jungle, An Ace in the Hole or Laura.
The only true heir to the film noir mantle in modern cinema is "The Usual Suspects." (Damn I wish Bryan Singer would make another movie like that one, but I digress) |
| Rating | | | Date | July 26, 2005 | | Summary | One Of The All-Time Greats | Content
| After "The Godfather", I'd have to rank "Chinatown" as the second best film of the 1970's. This is a masterpiece of acting(Nicholson and Dunaway brought their "A" game); writing(Robert Towne makes one forget how bad his "Shampoo" was); and, Polanski never made a better picture in his life.
If you see no other film from the 70's, make sure you see "Chinatown". You won't be disappointed. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 07, 2005 | | Summary | Polanski's film-noir masterpiece! | Content
| "Chinatown" is one of the best movies of all time directed by one of the greatest directors of all time (who seems to go unappreciated): Roman Polanski. With great performances by Faye Dunaway and Jack Nicholson, it's no wonder why this film is a classic. The film is a great example of film noir, and it keeps you in suspense throughout the film. The story for this film is so brilliant that it could beat out almost any modern Hollywood film today. Jack Nicholson plays a detective on a murder case in Chinatown, but only to get caught up in a world full of deceit and corruption.This film has so many great epic scenes, such as the one where Jack slaps Faye for some answers. The ending is one of the best endings of all time. |
| Rating | | | Date | June 19, 2005 | | Summary | Great villain, John Huston | Content
| This movie is masterfully done, has terrific acting, a great villain, a number of genuine surprises, and a stunning ending that haunts you.
Jack Nicholson is the protagonist. Faye Dunaway is the leading lady. The odd thing is, my favorite actor here is John Huston, the villain, who doesn't get nearly as much screen time as the other two. He is perfectly believable in a very eerie role. He is charming, menacing, and nuts, all at the same time.
This movie benefited greatly by having a non-American director, Roman Polanski. America, this one time, is shown to be a land where wealth rules, where the good guys completely lose, the innocent are victimized, and the cops aren't getting anything right. It is a mirror of ourselves that only a non-American would have given us.
I would say a lot more, but I realize that some of you who are browsing this site haven't seen the movie yet, and it would be a crime to reveal too much. This is an extremely intelligent film with some hard hitting surprises.
It does not focus on Chinatown. Chinatown is just mentioned as a place where some of the characters used to work, a place ruled by organized crime, where the best thing for the cops to do was as little as possible, because they never knew whether they were being used to solve a problem for the innocent or being used as pawns by the guilty, to add the weight of law to the weight of extortion.
I know exactly how that is, how police can be used in America to further the goals of the guilty parties. Chinatown, in this movie, is a symbol of lawlessness and disorder, and the movie is telling us that all of America is like that, that we live in Chinatown ourselves, that there is no law here. Sometimes it does go that way.
I've never seen an ending as menacing as the ending in this movie. Actually, do you remember in Saturday Nite Live when they did the "Bill" skits, where the victim kept saying "Oh noooooooooo.....". Hey, when things get this bad, it helps to laugh. |
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