Product: The Two Jakes [VHS] (1990)
Rating: 4.0
Top Notch Mystery
The warm LA nights are suffocatingly thick with the perfume of hibiscus and carbon monoxide. The city is in the beginning of the post war boom and the rush is now for oil and expanding real-estate over water squeeze of the 30's. Along the cracked sidewalks where primordial tar oozes between the cracks a ghost still walks beside Private Eye, Jake Gittes.In this well made sequel to "Chinatown" we are presented with the final chapter in the tragedy of Jake Gittes and Evelyn Mulwray. The film is meticulous in its attention to the post World War II Southern California setting. Stunning in the recreation of the period just as "Chinatown" was to the 1930's Los Angeles.The convoluted Chandleresque story is intriguing and pulls one quickly back into the web of the old story. Jack Nicholson re-creates an older and somewhat wiser Jake Gittes with all the skill and ease of the master of his generation. To top it off he directs with ease and assuredness. It is a real treat to see him working here at the top of his form as he moves into middle age and mellows as an artist without losing his sting.Harvey Keitel is the strong compelling center of the film in his appearance as the second Jake in the story. He is brilliant as a man hiding the truth on many levels. His eyes, as he listens to Gittes, glitter with pain and despair even as he tries to hid it from everyone including himself. His mix of toughness with heartbreaking vulnerability is fascinating to watch. He has never been better.Meg Tilly is properly cool and distantly mysterious as Keitel's wife who holds the ultimate key to the mystery that haunts both the Jakes. Madeleine Stowe in a comic turn delivers a sharply funny performance as she bounces across the screen like a hopped up Rosalind Russell. She nearly steals the picture out from under everyone's noses.Not the masterpiece that "Chinatown" was, none the less "The Two Jakes" is entertaining and a fine follow-up to the original. The film is worth seeing for the performances by all mentioned as well as the wonderful atmosphere of a long lost Los Angeles.