1937, Los Angeles. Private detective J. J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is hired by a disgruntled wife to find out if her husband is an adulterer, only to find himself caught in a much larger conspiracy. 

Gittes is initially hired to investigate the alleged philandering of Hollis Mulwray (Darrell Zwerling), who is the chief engineer at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. But when Gittes successfully takes some incriminating photos of Mulwray they suddenly find their way into the paper, his reputation is destroyed and later he is found dead in one of the reservoirs he oversees. More importantly, Mulwray’s opposition to a new scheme to build a dam and divert water from one part of the county to another is now removed. 

Gittes then finds himself caught between two forces trying to utilise his skills. Mulwray’s wife Evelyn (Faye Dunaway) wants to hire him to find her husband’s murderer. Whilst Hollis’ ex-business partner and Evelyn’s father (John Huston) wants to hire him to find the girl that Hollis was photographed with. 

The result is utterly compelling. 

Gittes is arguably Jack Nicholson’s greatest performance, which given his record is a monumental statement. In his career Nicholson was nominated twelve times for Academay awards for acting, winning three. But his role here as J. J. Gittes is surprisingly one of the nominations rather than one of the wins. His character here exudes a level of steely charm that hides a pain which we never truly understand explicitly. Before he was a detective he worked as a policeman in Chinatown and conversations with his current and ex partners suggest that what happened there has scarred him for life. But you do not succeed in this town or this job by looking back so the facade of a hard exterior is what sees him through. He is also an exceptional detective and it is fun to see the various tricks of the trade a detective in this time would use. I particularly love the watches he keeps in the dash of his car for surveillance purposes. 

Nicholson’s foils are also exceptional. Faye Dunnaway plays another fragile soul trying to put a brave face on what has befallen her. The scene in which she lights a cigarette only to have pointed out to her that she already has one lit is a masterclass in saying something without ever speaking. Whilst John Huston’s Noah Cross is the sort of mythical force that you hope you never encounter or get on the bad side of in your life. The sort of person who shapes the world and does not care about who gets crushed under his feet as he does it. It always reminds me of Orson Welles’ performance as Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane, except where all of the charm has been extracted and replaced with malevolence. 

Director Roman Polanski, who is now possibly more famous for events in his private life including one that makes him a fugitive from U.S. law achieves something spectacular here also. His construction of the film is exquisite. The labyrinthine and complicated plot is made understandable, the performances given space to shine and the film is shot in exquisite style. The look of 1930’s Los Angeles is sublime and one that directors of film noir since have always tried to capture. He even takes on one of the more famous cameo roles ever put to film where he plays a hoodlum who slits open Nicholson’s nose. His fights on set with Dunnaway and Nicholson were also legendary in what would be his last ever American film. 

Robert Towne’s script, the only one of eleven Oscar nominations the film received to win an award in the year that The Godfather Part II dominated proceedings is also one of the greats. A film noir masterpiece that is able to talk about corruption and power at the highest levels and heartbreak and loss at the most personal. 

And finally, there is that ending. One for the ages. As downbeat an ending as you can imagine delivered with one of the classic lines in cinema history, ‘Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.”

Chinatown is a cinematic masterpiece, an essential viewing for cinephiles and one of the most perfectly constructed film noirs ever created.