#83 Chinatown

1974

Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway

A young jack Nicholson stars as the main character in this crime thriller. Strangely this movie turns out to revolve around incest for the second time in the top 100, the other one was of course Oldboy.

This movie wasn't quite as gripping as Oldboy though, it for me anyway dragged a little, a good storyline and plot but slightly drawn out.

We follow JJ Gittes who is a private investigator, he is enlisted to spy on a rich woman's husband to see if he is having an affair, and as it turned out, yes he was. Once this news breaks in the paper, JJ finds out he wasn't enlisted by the wife at all, yet it was someone acting as her on behalf of a greater power.

JJ finally meets the real a wife once the husband is killed, he is then sent on a fact finding mission to find out who killed her husband and why. While he is trying to find the facts one of his old police friends is on his back trying to take him down for whit holding information regarding the death.

I watched this movie on a flight from Australia to Singapore to try and pass a few hours of the flight, but to be honest, it made the flight seem longer, I think it was partly the movie and the fact I was starving (left my wallet in my bag and I had the window seat so couldn't get to it). That aside it wasn't all bad, we had some boob action, some shooting and the sound track was pretty intense, to the point where it was trying to build the movie up to something it couldn't deliver.

Like a few movies from the era, the last 20 mins were crammed with the best parts, and the other hour and 50 minutes were filler to make you feel like you had got value for your money. Nicholson is by far the stand out actor with the leading lady close behind.

The scores

Visual
6/10 nothing awe inspiring, some good makeup when a certain character gets shot in the eye

Sound
5/10 this was good build up, but then took it too far, I laughed at one point, so it must have been bad.


Acting7/10 Nicholson acted with class, just a shame the movie wasn't up to his standard.


Plot7/10 the plot was good and had you guessing till the end, it was just dragged out.

Ending
7/10 Best part of the movie, very typical of a movie that predates 1990 (so far I have found anyway)

Final Score
32/50

Total Movie Minutes So Far ~ 2223
So again I'm not sure how this is on the top 100, there are many movies better than this, maybe it could be because of Nicholson, or the fact that it probably started to define a movie genre or that people who voted for it did so after a few years and look back in with with pleasant nostalgia.

Next up LA Confidential (1997)