Chinatown (Special Collector's Edition) | Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway

Chinatown (Special Collector's Edition) | Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway | Chinatown

DVDs:

Chinatown (Special...

	Chinatown (Special Collector's Edition) Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway Paramount Home Video, 2007 average customer review:based on 220 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Landmark movie in the film noir tradition, Roman Polanski's Chinatown stands as a true screen classic. Jack Nicholson is private eye Jake Gittes, living off the murky moral climate of sunbaked, pre-war Southern California. Hired by a beautiful socialite (Faye Dunaway) to investigate her husband's extra-marital affair, Gittes is swept into a maelstrom of double dealings and deadly deceits, uncovering a web of personal and political scandals that come crashing together for one, unforgettable night in...Chinatown. Co-starring film legend John Huston and featuring an Academy Award®-winning script by Robert Towne, Chinatown captures a lost era in a masterfully woven movie that remains a timeless gem.

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One of the greatest films of all time, and one of Nicholson's best too

This is a film you absolutely need to see at least twice. The first time through you'll be gasping for air, trying to keep up with the twists and turns in the plot. The second time through, you can sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. Those willing to view it again and again will find more and more to love in this amazingly dense but satisfying film. Jack Nicholson is perfect in the lead role, and the rest of the cast is equally at home in roles that flesh out this well woven tale. The look and feel of this film is fantastic.

Chinatown

My favorite movie of all time. A great purchase. Wish it were on bluray.

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Great film-noir atmosphere

Great noir films must have a certain dark, brooding atmosphere and Chinatown has this atmosphere in spades. This film starts as a relatively simple detective story about a philandering husband but slowly the layers of the onion are peeled back and the web of intrigue becomes more complex and seedy. Ultimately, you can see that the story is headed for a train wreck, it is simply a question of how it will unfold. Jack Nicholson plays the shady detective who is digging for the truth about a murder and shady land dealings during a drought in 1930s Los Angeles. In the end, it is hard to feel very sympathetic for any of the characters, most are driven by lust or greed or demons that they cannot purge. There are literally hundreds of reviews of this film, there is no need for me to repeat plot summaries other than to say that I wholeheartedly support the most positive reviews. This film is really a throwback to the great noir era of the 40s. Jack Nicholson would have been great alongside Barbara Stanwyck and any of the other femme fatales of the noir era. This film is in fact better than many of the earlier noir films in some ways in that more complex (and offensive) plot lines (e.g. incest) can be explored to really make the characters miserable and pathetic. If you like any of the noir greats (like Double Indemnity), you'll love Chinatown. Highly recommended.

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Yes, Somewhat Overrated

A good movie, but a great one? I think the Amazon review is a bit heavy on the hype. This was a good movie, even a very good movie, but I often found it somewhat slow, and the ending was less than satisfying. Not what I'd call 5 star material (but maybe I'm using the wrong evaluation criteria - entertainment value counts for a lot with me.. and while there was definitely some, it didn't reach the 5 star mark in my book). Certainly the pace picked up quite a bit in the last 3rd of the movie - which left me all the more frustrated with that sudden dud ending. On the other hand, if Polanski's goal was to be true to noir genre, than perhaps he succeeded there (I wouldn't really know, not being an expert in noir). As for the quality of the dvd, the transfer on my disc was rich and colorful - the tone of the film was certainly something of an acheivement.

Polanski, Nicholson, Dunaway.. ingredients for something great, but go in with low expectations and you'll come away pleased. If you see it for the first time with all the gushing of the Amazon review in mind, you're bound to be disappointed.

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