Chinatown (1974)

Genre: Crime/Mystery/Drama/Thriller

Starring: Jack Nicholson, Fayne Dunaway, John Huston, Perry Lopez

A classic, multiple award winning and well-renowned movie, Chinatown is based upon the murder of Hollis Mulwray, an engineer at the Los Angeles water department. The government wants to build a dam to provide water to the city which Mulwray is against building. His wife Evelyn Mulwray hires private investigator J.J. 'Jack' Gittes (Nicholson) to investigate on her husbands affair with another woman. Jack unveils the affair and plasters it across newspapers and subsequently Holwray is found dead near a reservoir with Gittes suspecting it to be murder. With a case of mistaken identities and a huge puzzle that just does not add up, Gittes needs to get to the bottom of Mulwray's murder. SPOILER ALERT, the following lines are concerned with the movies climax. The movie progresses in a superb manner, gaining a lot of attention to the point that you are itching to know how the plot unveils. The biggest let down is the final climax which does not come open as any other murder mystery would. Its quite dramatic, different from the approach of the greater part of the movie and personally I don't think it suits the character of Gittes. It does not believe in a happy ending and may not appeal to all, at least not to me. For once perhaps if the movie followed a more conventional approach it might have been better but at the same time lets not forget all the accolades the movie has garnered and assume that it is right in its own part. Jack Nicholson has delivered in an amazing manner and the movie constantly reminds one of the famous Perry Mason series of murder mystery novels and the movie, along with Gittes' character, seem to be inspired from there although there is no official confirmation of it. The best bet you got for a murder mystery with the film noir feel to it.

Thumbs up: Jack Nicholson, amazing plot and mystery

Thumbs down: Unconventional climax contrary to the movies approach

Rating: 8.0/10