I don't embrace all the high praise for "Chinatown."

Rating: Null/10 (28 February 2003)

"Chinatown" is currently #42 in the IMDb rank list, and based on that I had expected it to be a great movie. While I found it good and interesting, to me it was nothing more than that. My rating is "7" of 10. I can think of a number of "detective/whodunnit" films that are much better. Reading many user reviews, it seems that many give it bonus points for having an unexpected, and dark, ending. So, maybe if in "Crossroads" the Britney Spears character had fallen off the stage and died right before her first concert, then it too might have been one of the best of all time!? I watch films to be entertained and for me a good, uplifting conclusion usually works. "Chinatown" does not have that, so for me it just becomes another uninteresting story, although a fictional one, about bad people getting their way.
I have always thought Jack Nicholson to be one of the better modern actors, and his performance here is one of his better ones. I don't normally like Dunnaway but I found her performance also to be very good. But Polanski never has been a favorite of mine and perhaps that's why I think "Chinatown" is closer to ordinary than great.
SPOILERS - don't read any further
The apparent affair with the young girl is just a red herring. She is in fact the daughter/sister of Dunnaway's character, a product of incest. Jake (Nicholson) is an innocent pawn, his investigation is there to divert attention and make it look like the husband is murdered for cause. In the end, the evil father (Huston) who also has the police in his hip pocket gets away with murder, and has his police pawn kill his own daughter. Long live corruption in Los Angeles.