Chinatown (1974, R)

This is a solid private investigator story starring Jack Nicholson (One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, The Shining) in probably his only non-crazy person role and Faye Dunaway (Mommy Dearest, Bonny And Clyde) as the femme fatale.  The film lacks the visual style of classic noir, but it is a good prototype of a 1950's style.  Nicholson plays a surprisingly successful PI (most detective stories I encounter tend to be down on their luck, stubbly and drinking cheap whiskey out of a coffee mug) who was hired to investigate potential unfaithfulness of a woman's wife, but the case grows into something much more as he finds out things aren't what they seem.  There's loads of secrets, lies, treachery, murder... the works.

I had been lead to believe that I would love the hell out of this movie because I like the detective noir sub-genre so much, and don't get me wrong the movie was very good, but my expectations were set too high and it didn't quite match up.  It didn't add to the genre as a whole like I was somehow (perhaps unfairly) expecting.  For those however, I would strongly recommend Brick, The Caveman's Valentine, Assassination Of A High School President, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang... all are phenomenal!  Nicholson played a flawed man, not an angel by any stretch of the imagination, but we get to see some pretty cool tricks of the trade as he employs various methods to get more information on his case.  There were some great iconic lines in this film: "When you're right, you're right... and you're right!", or when asked about a nasty facial wound, "I cut myself shaving" (Jonah Hex used the line in a comic years later).

He must have been using the new Gillette Chainsaw

One thing that took away from the film for me was that I didn't find the femme fatale particularly attractive.  I mean, the arc of eyebrows was a nice angle and all, but it was drawn on with a pencil and that just kind of weirds me out.  Chinatown was mentioned a few times in passing as part of Nicholson's past (he and a current police detective used to be partnered up on the beat in that part of town (apparently it has a reputation that cops either do or should leave things alone there, but you'd have to know that already because they never say it in the film... kind of a weakness to watching the film years later like I did; I presume it was more common knowledge when the film was made), but most of the story takes place in non-Chinatown Los Angeles.  Overall, it was a solid movie, but it didn't move me (see what I did there?).  No, what am I saying... I did really like it.  There are better, but it's at least a 4 star movie, maybe a hair above.