The ending killed it for me

Rating: 7/10 (13 April 2006)

Before any of you movie buffs assault me in your minds for wanting a happy ending, I want to say I don't. I want AN ending. Any ending. The ending is the most important part of a film. It sticks with you in ways the rest of the film doesn't.
Chinatown's ending sticks with me, but it does so for the wrong reason. I have the same problem with 'The French Connection.' It WASN'T an ending! It just went along, then stopped. Like the editor sneezed while splicing film.
Nicholson's character persists in the investigation even when he doesn't need to. I'm sorry, but there's no chance he wouldn't have persisted after the events in the last scenes. The movie failed to end. It just stopped two or three scenes before the actual end. It annoyed me to the point of growling.
Is the movie brilliant? Yes. Is the movie a classic? Yes. Is the movie annoying? Hell yes! I don't care if everyone ends up dead and LA burns to the ground and the last shot is of crying babies burning on spikes, it's at least a real ending with no loose ends.
Loose ends in a bad movie are derided, loose ends in this movie and it's called a masterpiece? No. It doesn't work that way. I adored every frame until the last scene, when the loose ends burned like fiery wicks into my soul.
I want to give the movie a much lower score... but... I... can't. The rest of the movie is just too damned good. But the ending killed it for me. I could never watch it again.