Good Film which Polanski ruins w/horrid ending

Rating: Null/10 (9 April 2002)

Warning: spoilers for the ending below.

I was cruising along really enjoying this mid-70s does mid-40s noir flick. Young Nicholson rules with one of his best performances from the days before he went over the top as "Jack" and began basically being "Jack Nicholson Playing Himself" (The Shining, Joker in first Batman movie, etc). He's super-cool without the super-creepiness of his later acting career.
I loved the plot--all about water politics and LA. Doesn't sound all that exciting, but it's one of the film's strengths to take an ostensibly boring topic and make it fascinating. You wonder who's behind this gigantic (30 million dollar) fraud, and why the poor water board guy had to be killed, and what the water guy's supposed "girlfriend" had to do with it. Everything gathers speed towards the end, rolling up to a Big Revelation that you eagerly anticipate.... ...and that drops in your lap like a rock. The final revelation is just so stunningly bad that your jaw drops. Faye Dunaway's "big secret" is that her father raped her and she had a child by him. Huh? How completely stupid! It has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movie. Nobody *cares* about that little girl other than as a plot device in the setup of the murder victim. But of course Polanski (with his twisted reputation) has to get all psychosexual on us and present her as the offspring of the above father/daughter incest. WTF? Like I said, this makes zero sense in the context of the rest of the plot and comes off as Polanski trying to be dramatic and "dark." It doesn't fit with the rest of the movie in tone or plot and doesn't resolve anything other than a boring subplot about why Dunaway is so wacked. Who cares? That's not what the movie was about up to that point. This mind-numbingly irrelevant "revelation" produces the dreadful effect of having been pointlessly manipulated by the director/script writer, almost like they were afraid the film wasn't "out there" enough and had to spice it up. The effect was like pouring tabasco on a hot fudge sundae. Blech.
The whole "father/daughter incest" thing killed my enjoyment of the movie stone cold dead. What could have been a 10 turned into a 6 immediately. Then the strong-armed attempt to force a connection with Chinatown as if "Chinatown" were supposed to mean something dropped it to a 5. The badly-staged action sequence and inexplicable police behavior didn't help either. The whole final scene plays out like the actors themselves didn't get it. I don't think I've ever seen as good a movie fall apart so quickly. A real disappointment.
Robert St. James Albany, Oregon - April 2002.