highly overrated

Rating: 4/10 (11 May 2002)

To me Chinatown is a mediocre film noir. I love mistery, I love dark films, and I love tragic endings, but this film contains nothing of these. The only real surprise of the movie is the fact that salt water is not good for grass, all other twists (and there are many) are either hinted at too early in too obvious a way, or they come completely unprepared in a way which is meant to shock, which usually fails. This holds in particular for the daughter-sister-scene - on one hand hand I expect her to say something horrible, on the other hand, I have no clue what exactly she will say. So I am neither surprised, for I had no expectations which could be shaken, nor shocked, because the scene and its aim to shock has been heralded far too early. The ending is logical and would be nice, if Gittes wouldn't have talked to much before. So chinatown was already known as the symbol of "we destroy what we love while trying to protect it", and we can only wait and see how exactly destruction will take place.
The film is somewhat saved by the superb acting of whole cast, nice lighting and the nose scene. Alltogether a 4.