Chinatown

The peak of 1970s grim noir crime investigation with the grand Jack Nicholson, who – apart from delivering a standard high-quality performance – can also add another notch in his belt representing more actresses in his favorite bed. Apart from the amazing Jack and the gloomy atmosphere, it’s a standard film noir. (16/08/2016)

I've heard maybe too much praise for the movie, and perhaps I'm already a bit influenced by the current state of the world, so the major revelation didn't feel that shocking to me. But it's still a great film, which Polanski guides with an incredibly sure hand to the end, and it offers no happy ending, which in this case is a good thing. (06/10/2015)

I have one problem with Chinatown, as deeply mysterious and conspiratorial as the story appears to be, I found it rather falsely super-clever and a bit unnecessarily drawn out in the end. But that doesn't change the fact that it works superbly as a colourful homage to film-noir, that the atmosphere is properly suffocating, the actors are excellent and that Polanski stages some of the climactic scenes in a very impressive, almost unique in its time, visual way. Rarely you’ll feel so sad that noir has disappeared from the film industry as when you watch Chinatown, a work of form that is undoubtedly perfect and beautiful... (08/02/2016)

I like Polanski’s movies. I have a weakness for noir. And for Nicholson as a young actor, when he hadn’t yet got into the habit of acting himself from various directions. Chinatown isn’t the best noir movie ever. But it certainly is one of the best. I can see just one “serious" negative. That it wasn’t filmed in black and white, as Polanski originally intended. (27/11/2004)

I recently saw this gem for about the fifth time, but finally for the first time in widescreen uncut format (shame on our distributors that this, one of the best films of the 70s, has never been released on DVD with Czech support). It's rare that a film draws me into the action as if I were there, but Chinatown has an extremely dense, almost oppressive atmosphere of the sun-baked streets of summer Los Angeles in the 1930s, where the slowly escalating plot begins as a fairly ordinary noirish detective story, only to grow into a drama of antique proportions at the end. I've seen Jack Nicholson in many, many films, but here he plays the role of his life in my eyes, and the same can be said about Faye Dunaway. Jerry Goldsmith's music touches on perfection in places, with the saxophone never sounding sweeter than during the melodically expressive “Love Theme”. There was strong competition at the Oscars that year (Godfather II, The Towering Inferno, etc.), but I still can't shake the feeling that the academics were asleep when they awarded Polanski's masterpiece only one statuette out of eleven nominations - for screenplay. One of my Top 10 films. (03/08/2007)