Word: chinatown
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...THIS BUSINESS," says Jack Nicholson--as J.J. "Jake" Gittis, private detective specializing in marriage difficulties, flushing his suave taunting smile and slender silver cigarette case--"you gotta have finesse." Nicolson does. And so, in this business of making thirties atmosphere detective thrillers, does Roman Polanski. He's made Chinatown the best film so far this year, an unpretentious homage to thirties detective flicks, the kind of tense story where the reviewer forgets to take notes about half-way through...
...Chinatown itself is also in the background--and curiously far. Only one scene takes place there, but it figures importantly in Gittis's background. He was a detective there and got involved with a woman and learned its lack of respect for life, but the outlines are blurry--out of focus. Maybe too far out of focus for some people--I'm guessing the worst thing that could be wrong with this film is that about two thirds of the way through you might worry about why the title seems irrelevant. But by that point in the story I doubt...
...Polanski, Chinatown marks a certain proof of mastery to which none of his previous films gave him clear title. It falls in a genre he's never touched before, and yet it comes from his hands shaped true both to its genre and--in the unnatural, shocking twist of the ending--to its director. If there's any justice in this business Chinatown should be the big success of the year...
...chance to get into any depth. Gittis is a nickel-and-dimer trying to boost himself into the big time. He wears sharp, fussy suits and throws out a line of bright chatter. But there are still times when he sounds like the dumb cop on the deadend Chinatown beat. All this is fine, but it is all there is. Chandler made Philip Marlowe into a paladin. For Polanski and Towne, Gittis is simply a protagonist who has nothing at stake, a kind of genial guide through all the thickets of plot...
...Chinatown as a whole shares something of Dunaway's problem. Get too close to it and the careful illusion breaks down. Polanski and Towne turned out a smart and elegant recreation. But the script also raises moral questions and political implications that are never plumbed at greater than paper-cup depth...