Prompt delivery and value for money

Chinatown remains one of the great 70s films of all time, alongside such perfect works as The Conformist, The Godfather I&II, Badlands, Shampoo, Mean Streets, Network, The Last Picture Show, The French Connection, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest & The Deer Hunter. Penned by key New-Hollywood screenwriter Robert Towne (The Last Detail) & directed by Roman Polanksi, it recreates a knowing take on film noir. This is done by updating the colour scheme, moving from the chiaroscuro experimentation of film noir such as The Big Heat, Out of the Past & In a Lonely Place to a lush colour scheme utilising orange-filters in an intrigueing manner. The film recreates an era with John A Alonso's cinematography- which sits next to the perfect recreations of era in colour such as Reds, Days of Heaven, Barry Lyndon & Heaven's Gate.
Towne's screenplay is complex & knowing, so many twists & parallels it is as good as the genre to which it refers- most notably the roman-noir writings of Raymond Chandler (The Long Goodbye) & Dashiel Hammett (Red Harvest). It makes the film adaptation of LA Confidential look a joke compared. Great to see a lack of voiceover, Towne can easily do the droll-Bogart quips- as is seen when Jake talks to the cops- but the images are left to do the talking. And when the twists come, they come- & are as powerful as those in films such as Vertigo.
The cast are brilliant- one of Nicholson's key performances (so why did he win an Oscar for As Good as it Gets?), alongside brilliant turns from Faye Dunaway, Diane Ladd & a creepy John Huston (there's also a top cameo from Polanski & an appearance from John Hillerman, familiar to those who watched Magnum PI!).
The film starts off as a simple detective story, a local politician is accused by his wife of having an affair, Jake Gittes- who used to work for the D.A. until an undefined event in Chinatown- takes on the case & starts to tail the man in question. The backdrop of politics appears to be related- 1937 LA has not yet expanded to the valleys & is experiencing a water shortage; add to this politicians who wish to build a new dam. Enter Faye Dunaway, an extension of the femme fatale who is more of a victim than a spiderwoman, who informs Gittes that she is the real wife of the man he's tailing (so who was the woman who originally hired him?). Complexities abound when said man turns up dead in the LA water system & it turns out saltwater was in his lungs. Enter a web of modern corruption, leading to Noah Cross (John Huston), who was involved with the dead man & wants to track a girl seen by Gittes during surveillance. Enter more complexities & revelations...
Chinatown is a simply brilliant film, one that can definitely be called perfect- it slowly reveals a portrait of a changing LA- where modern life is taking over (the Okies recalling those in Grapes of Wrath are being destroyed by the politicians & the police are in cahoots with Cross)- preceding the world James Ellroy takes up with books like The Black Dahlia & LA Confidential. It also has a brilliant score from Jerry Goldsmith, which William Goldman believes saves the film (see Which Lie Did I Tell?). A masterpiece of 20th century cinema that is great value at this budget price...

This film is a masterpiece because it is nothing but what we expect and we expect something different at every single moment of it, so that we are disappointed and surprised and held breathless every fifteen minutes when one of our expectations goes down the chute. At first we think it is one more private eye's business or investigation in some kind of affair with some married man. But it does not fit at all with the professional dedication of the suspected unfaithful man. He is obviously looking for something fishy in the water supply of Los Angeles he is responsible for. But then he does meet with a girl, doesn't he after all. And yet there is something fishy in that water supply. So it might be a big embezzlement case. Let Los Angeles pay for the water they will never get and then let Los Angeles get to the water where it will be, and let them pay again. The point is it does not explain everything, and especially why the thieving contractor is so keen on getting the hooker his son in law was seeing. Too keen to be honest. Is she a hooker after all? And we go on doubting, hoping, being disappointed and never getting to the truth of the business. Who the killer really is? Who the police really work for? Who the police tries to protect and cover? Why do the police do that unprofessional act? There is just no good enough answer, and even at the end, when the tycoon contracting embezzler gets the last word we know we are off the point and losing all footing in too deep water. That's probably the best part of this film. You just have to accept the situation the way it is and do nothing just because some people are big enough, rich enough or powerful enough to do exactly what they want and everyone else has only one choice, die or say yes-sir-mister-master-sir-boss. Even killing his own child is not a no-go option for such a greedy person. Remember, change we can, but change these tycoons cannot. So better change them than expect them to change. Why not send them on a perpetual vacation in some desert island that has absolutely no connection with the outside world, But dummy, that's just the point, such a place does not exist. So better put them to death, put them to sleep or deep freeze them if you don't want to deep fry them, which stinks a little bit. But any other way will let them go on with their shaggy and dirty business. But gosh it reaps a lot of profit in. Look at Madoff.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

Based on a water scandal that really happened. Great film noire of the 70s. just loathed to recommend films by Polanski, well you know why.

Not a bad film but overly long and l found it boring

A movie when thet really made them.

Reading other people's reviews here, this film obviously so divides viewers that most of those who like this film cannot understand how anyone else can not like it, and 'vice versa'. I may upset both sides by being one of the few '3 star' 'OK' reviews.

This is a clever (slightly too clever?), pessimistic film set in the 1920s. The director Roman Polanski, whatever the personal and legal controversies around him, has made some good films. This one has its merits but it is not one of my favourites.

The title refers to the ‘Chinatown’ district of Los Angeles. However, the film is not about Chinese-Americans and only one scene takes place in Chinatown.

According to an interview in the DVD extras, the reason for the title, which is really a metaphor, and the inspiration for the story, was something the scriptwriter was told by a police officer he knew. The police do as little as possible in Chinatown because they cannot penetrate the culture. When they become involved in something they do not know if they are preventing a crime or being fooled into helping someone to commit a crime.

In the film a private detective, played by Jack Nicholson, investigates an equally complicated and shadowy situation to do with deaths of people running a water company, which it is not possible to entirely solve. The last line of the film is:

“Forget it Jake, this is Chinatown.”

Another theme is how even something as ordinary and beneficial as water can become the subject of crime and corruption, and about the growth of Los Angeles, as the value of the land around it depends on the water supply.

The director Roman Polanski plays a small part as a thug who cuts the hero’s nose with a knife. He is good in the role.

The main cast, Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway and John Huston all, as far as I can judge, do a skilled job of acting, but without engaging me enough to be eager to see more films of theirs.

Great actors, and a great director, lovely photography in this neo-noir movie which echoes the Bogart movies of the early ‘40s. So what’s the problem why not five stars then? Well I found it strangely un-involving. The plot is complicated and difficult to follow and after a while I stopped caring. It’s also slow at times, and drags its feet as though this will make people believe it’s an ‘epic’ movie which I don’t think it is. Jack Nicholson is a great actor and you can’t help watch him and wonder what he’s going to do next, and in that sense he’s a good choice for the P.I. role. Unfortunately the whole movie needs to be wound up and made snappier, as it’s feels a bit slo-mo most of the time, which undermines it. Three stars from me.