"You can't eat the Venetian blinds. I just had them installed on Wednesday."

Rating: 7/10 (29 April 2014)

This is such a classic, and all around great film. But, I honestly think the plot was a tiny bit dry. Yes, it's a mystery with lots of twists and turns and surprises. But after a while it begins to feel a bit like a scandal within a scandal within another scandal (scandal-ception?) There was no real tension, and it seemed like they were just adding plot details to draw it out. There was also a little bit too much dialogue for my tastes. That being said, I also appreciated that it wasn't paced like a typical "murder mystery," and the way in which it unfolded was slightly more lifelike. What was redeeming for me was the ending (which a lot of people hate apparently). The characters have been on this wild goose chase, only to have it not play out in their favor. Which I think has to be a VERY conscious decision to do, because it's not what's expected and therefore under scrutiny. I think it fits here though, especially since the previous parts of the film didn't give you the feeling something bad was going to happen—it seemed like Jake would prevail. A lot of the time, films with an "unhappy" ending have a pessimistic tone throughout so it's almost as if you expect it.
I really love the camera and lighting work. Specifically that slightly yellowed tone (but never too yellow) with orange-y reds that appears in a bunch of films from this era. It looks as though they need to add a bit of cyan, but I'm pretty sure it was intentional. It's also rather difficult to duplicate—I've tried.
It references film noir a little, but clearly has a twist to it that's more current to 1974. I believe it's called neo noir. And one more thing: the soundtrack was amazing, but it was used rather poorly, and in a way that called attention to itself. This could be intentional, but it felt unintentional.