Chinatown (Special Collector's Edition)
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Hillerman, John Huston, Perry LopezDirector: Roman Polanski
Studio: Paramount Home Video
MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Running Time: 130 minutes
DVD Release: November 6th 2007
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DVD Review
Landmark movie in the film noir tradition, Roman Polanski's Chinatown stands as a true screen classic. Jack Nicholson is private eye Jake Gittes, living off the murky moral climate of sunbaked, pre-war Southern California. Hired by a beautiful socialite (Faye Dunaway) to investigate her husband's extra-marital affair, Gittes is swept into a maelstrom of double dealings and deadly deceits, uncovering a web of personal and political scandals that come crashing together for one, unforgettable night in...Chinatown. Co-starring film legend John Huston and featuring an Academy AwardŽ-winning script by Robert Towne, Chinatown captures a lost era in a masterfully woven movie that remains a timeless gem.
User Reviews
Chinatown - Rating: 5/5
My favorite movie of all time. A great purchase. Wish it were on bluray.
Yes, Somewhat Overrated - Rating: 4/5
A good movie, but a great one? I think the Amazon review is a bit heavy on the hype. This was a good movie, even a very good movie, but I often found it somewhat slow, and the ending was less than satisfying. Not what I'd call 5 star material (but maybe I'm using the wrong evaluation criteria - entertainment value counts for a lot with me.. and while there was definitely some, it didn't reach the 5 star mark in my book). Certainly the pace picked up quite a bit in the last 3rd of the movie - which left me all the more frustrated with that sudden dud ending. On the other hand, if Polanski's goal was to be true to noir genre, than perhaps he succeeded there (I wouldn't really know, not being an expert in noir). As for the quality of the dvd, the transfer on my disc was rich and colorful - the tone of the film was certainly something of an acheivement.
Polanski, Nicholson, Dunaway.. ingredients for something great, but go in with low expectations and you'll come away pleased. If you see it for the first time with all the gushing of the Amazon review in mind, you're bound to be disappointed.
Truly Over Rated - Rating: 2/5
I'm in the process of watching all of the movies on AFI's Top 100 list. This is one I hadn't seen yet and so far it is my least favorite. I just don't get it at all. Why this is on the list is beyond me. The movie was choppy, the acting was hokey, and the plot was weak.
A movie that starts off as one thing and changes to another mid-way - Rating: 2/5
"Chinatown" was recently included on the AFI's Top 10 Mysteries list, and as it was the only film on the list that I hadn't seen, and I liked 8 of the 9 films that I had seen (sorry, I just didn't like "The Third Man"), I thought it would be worth giving it a try. I am now glad that I have seen this film, considering it is so highly regarded, but to say that this is the second greatest mystery movie of all time, and a better movie than "Rear Window", "Laura" and "Blue Velvet" (three of my favourite movies), is giving it far more credit than it deserves.
"Chinatown" starts off as your standard private detective film. Private investigator Jake Gittens (Jack Nicholson) is hired by a woman, claiming to be Evelyn Mulwray, to find out if her husband is cheating on her. What seems to be routine divorce work becomes more complicated when the real Mrs. Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) shows up and her husband is found murdered. Gittens investigates and discovers an illegal money-making plot (which I won't give the details of, in order to avoid spoilers) and then something far more sinister.
Although both Nicholson and Dunaway are excellent actors (although, I believe that both have made better films), this film is let down by what I consider to be a second-rate script (an opinion which I will, no doubt, be criticized for, since it won Best Screenplay). Here is why I do not like this script: firstly, the film is called "Chinatown", but none of the characters actually go to Chinatown until about five minutes before the end of the film (and because of this, the final lines of the film just don't seem justified); secondly, the villain barely appears, which makes the revelation of his guilt completely unsatisfactory; but my biggest criticism of the film is that, to me, it felt like the writer had started writing one film, a murder mystery about drought-ridden LA, but three-quarters of the way through, lost interest in that and decided to write a completely different film instead. This leads to the final act of the film feeling hurried and crowded. I also found the ending, in general, to be unsatisfactory, for reasons that will become apparent if you see the film.
The AFI did a pretty good job in compiling their Top 10 Mysteries list, but as far as I'm concerned, "Chinatown" is the joker in the pack. I highly recommend that all mystery lovers watch the movies on this list (the movies are, in order: "Vertigo", "Chinatown", "Rear Window", "Laura", "The Third Man", "The Maltese Falcon", "North by Northwest", "Blue Velvet", "Dial M for Murder" and "The Usual Suspects"), but perhaps save "Chinatown" until last.
Imperfect film noir never gets near the real Chinatown... - Rating: 4/5
It's surprising that for all the slavish attention to period detail that Roman Polanski puts into CHINATOWN, he lets down the audience in the finale which is supposed to take place in the actual Chinatown at night. Instead, it looks (as the original review in The New York Times pointed out), more like Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn with a few neon signs flickering in the background for Oriental flavor, filmed on an artificial, improvised set. It's a letdown when the film's most crucial moments aren't given the careful period flavor that goes into the majority of the piece. It's also unworthy of the film's final line: "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."
Robert Towne's screenplay owes a great deal to Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, both expert writers of crime detective fiction full of sardonic humor and double entendre remarks, usually delivered in deadpan manner by whomever was playing the male detective. He uses "Chinatown" as a metaphor for a puzzle nobody can solve, sort of the way Thomas Mitchell summed up a mystery by saying "makes as much sense as Chinese music" in "The Dark Mirror".
In both CHINATOWN and THE MALTESE FALCON, a private eye gets involved in a messy case involving murder and other assorted mayhem, drawn into the case by a cool femme fatale who knows more than she's saying, and a cast of mostly unsavory characters living in the fringes of L.A.'s Chinatown area where crime in the 1930s is rampant.
In this case, the cynical, hard-nosed detective is played to perfection by JACK NICHOLSON in the kind of role he excelled in, justly winning a Best Actor nomination. And likewise, the inscrutable dame is played by FAYE DUNAWAY in the sort of part Mary Astor essayed in "The Maltese Falcon". Instead of Sydney Greenstreet, we get JOHN HUSTON in the role of her megalomaniac, corrupt father. And keeping all of this fascinating material well in hand is Roman Polanski, himself a player in the film as the hood who slashes Nicholson's nose.
It's gritty, authentic looking (except for the above-mentioned flaw) and captures the mood of the story with its Los Angeles backgrounds and detailed attention to '30s styles. Visually, it's a masterpiece--and while the story gets a little slow once in awhile in uncovering a convoluted plot involving land rights and water control, it leads to a highly suspenseful ending.
A stylish thriller, well worth watching, especially if you love film noir. But somehow, Bogie's image hovers over most of the dialog and it falls far short of being called a "masterpiece" as many have done here. A more concise, compact telling of the tale would have made that description more apt instead of this long, rambling story with its engineering background and slow revelations.
Note: The widescreen DVD features a couple of insightful commentaries by the creators of "Chinatown" (Roman Polanski, Robert Towne, Bob Evans), as well as Jack Nicholson, but it's advisable to watch after seeing the film because a lot of the plot twists are given away.
