Imperfect film noir never gets near the real "Chinatown"...

Rating: 8/10 (7 October 2006)

It's surprising that for all the slavish attention to period detail that Roman Polanski puts into CHINATOWN, he lets down the audience in the finale which is supposed to take place in the actual Chinatown at night. Instead, it looks (as the original review in The New York Times pointed out), more like Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn with a few neon signs flickering in the background for Oriental flavor, filmed on an artificial, improvised set. It's a letdown when the film's most crucial moments aren't given the careful period flavor that goes into the majority of the piece. It's also unworthy of the film's final line: "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."
Robert Foote's screenplay owes a great deal to Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, both expert writers of crime detective fiction full of sardonic humor and double entendre remarks, usually delivered in deadpan manner by whomever was playing the male detective.
In both CHINATOWN and THE MALTESE FALCON, a private eye gets involved in a messy case involving murder and other assorted mayhem, drawn into the case by a cool femme fatale who knows more than she's saying, and a cast of mostly unsavory characters living in the fringes of L.A.'s Chinatown area where crime in the 1930s is rampant.
In this case, the cynical, hard-nosed detective is played to perfection by JACK NICHOLSON in the kind of role he excelled in, justly winning a Best Actor nomination. And likewise, the inscrutable dame is played by FAYE DUNAWAY in the sort of part Mary Astor essayed in "The Maltese Falcon". Instead of Sydney Greenstreet, we get JOHN HUSTON in the role of her megalomaniac, corrupt father. And keeping all of this fascinating material well in hand is Roman Polanski, himself a player in the film as the hood who slashes Nicholson's nose.
It's gritty, authentic looking (except for the above-mentioned flaw) and captures the mood of the story with its Los Angeles backgrounds and detailed attention to '30s styles. Visually, it's a masterpiece--and while the story gets a little slow once in awhile in uncovering a convoluted plot involving land rights and water control, it leads to a highly suspenseful ending.
A stylish thriller, well worth watching, especially if you love film noir. But somehow, Bogie's image hovers over most of the dialog and it falls far short of being called a "masterpiece" as many have done here. A more concise, compact telling of the tale would have made that description more apt instead of this long, rambling story with its engineering background and slow revelations.