Jack and kill

Rating: 8/10 (1 December 2012)

I have to confess I absolutely hate Jack Nicholson as an actor. Everyone has their bÃªte- noire I suppose and he's mine, I just see him overacting in everything instead of acting. That goes for "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", "The Shining", "The Departed", you name it, for me he ruins it. All that is, except this.
In Roman Polanski's superb revision of the 40's 'tec thriller, Nicholson is, and I really hate to say it, believe me, nothing short of brilliant. His character is a workaday private investigator, small-fry, but smart and persistent and Nicholson has you following in Jake Gittes every step from the first, which of course is director Polanski's methodology here, to draw in the viewer and hand us the problem, almost at first-hand, of trying to solve the labyrinthine plot, which gets deeper and darker as it progresses.
Of course there has to be a femme fatale and here Faye Dunaway is entrusted the Mary Astor/Lauren Bacall role. However I wasn't completely convinced by her, for me she lacked the sexy allure and depths of mystery the part demands. Thus it was that at the famous expository "Mother! Sister!" scene, I almost burst out laughing at the fake sincerity (or should that be sincere fakery?) she employs. It was John Huston who got the acting Oscar in the movie, well deserved for his sleazy portrayal of the monstrous megalomaniacal father to Dunaway.
Polanski's stylish direction is pace-perfect, unhurriedly but assuredly unfolding and then folding in again the action. The cinematography and depiction of the age couldn't be more accurate at least to these eyes and ears while the rhythmic vernacular of the dialogue is a pleasure to hear. By the time the movie reaches its bloody, tragic, but inevitable climax, you feel like one of the bystanders shooed away by the police at the end, so close have you been to the action.
At one point Gittes asks the question "How do you like them apples?" I liked them fine, just fine.