Rating: 
Summary: More Style than Substance
Review: "Chinatown" is one of Hollywood's most over-rated films. Yes, it is superbly made, the script is a model of tightness, the actors are wonderful, the sense of Santa Ana heat nearly palpable. It's a well-upholstered bit of craftsmanship, although there's hardly anything unique in that. Hollywood has never lacked the ability to mount elegantly expensive productions. What it has consistently been incapable of is transcending popular forms, of giving us something *more* than just a handsome piece of entertainment. "Chinatown" is no exception.For, in the final analysis, "Chinatown" is nothing but a meticulously engineered pastiche of a hard-boiled detective story. Don't get me wrong, I love detective fiction. I just don't think it should be sentimentalized into anything more than it is. If the film has any claims to distinction at all, it is for its creamy style, not its slightly atypical focus on the seedy, rotten and hypocritical aspects of American life. Since Hollywood doesn't usually like to show America as anything other than a sunny, adolescent playground, however, the film's mildly critical gestures may seem more insightful than they are. There is nothing radical or subversive about this criticism. In fact, quite the contrary. Recognizing that money buys power and that the powerful frequently get away with much for which the rest of us are punished is hardly profound. It is a message with which we all could agree before entering the theater. There really isn't much more to "Chinatown's" social critique than spinning this truism into an intricate spider web of complicity. To compensate for genuine insight, Towne and Polanski kink up the story a bit, giving the it the veneer of the new and the specific, while also turning corruption into something safely personal. Such mild criticism in fact *confirms* people's preconceptions by repeating a common sense recognition while conveniently locating it somewhere else. Decadence becomes the problem of a few misguided individuals; the rest of us would be fine if we could just get rid of those bad guys. Of course, to expect radical criticism of American society from a big-budget, star-studded Hollywood production is, to put it mildly, naive. That is my point: the bottom line is that "Chinatown" is limited by the middle-brow mind set of the industry that produced it, the requirement to make money, the need to please. The very care exercised in its production insures its expense; its expense requires a large return on investment; the requirement for a large audience makes impossible any criticism that might deeply offend anyone. "Chinatown" is posh, sexy entertainment, a very good film to be sure. As it unabashedly caters to people's prejudices, however, it proves it is far from being a great one.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the Greats
Review: One of the greatest film mysteries of all time is CHINATOWN, and this DVD finally presents a video version worthy of the film. In sparkling clear and colorful film noir, we see Robert Towne's masterful story acted by a stupendous cast of performers, none of whom has ever been better. No need to go into the specifics of the mystery. Ace detective Jake Gittes is on the trail of a murdered water commissioner whose wife has her own series of mysteries she's covering. In true mystery-fashion, the plot is labyrinthine on first viewing, but it all flows together beautifully once the resolution is presented and one has a chance to review all the twists and turns. The DVD features the movie's first anamorphic widescreen presentation, and it's a joy to behold. Seriously saturated colors and a sharp picture make the previous laserdisc incarnation (up until the DVD release the only widescreen version available) insupportable. Sound is clear and balanced with a newly mixed Dolby Digital 5.1 track replacing the original mono of the laserdisc. All the better to hear Jerry Goldsmith's mournfully brilliant score. Lovers of mysteries won't need my recommendation to snap up a copy of this one pronto!
Rating:
Summary: My #1 of All-Time
Review: Simply the best piece of cinematic art ever produced. The intracies and subtlety demand repeat viewings. For anyone that appreciates Film Noir, this is a magnum opus.
Rating:
Summary: Good Movie.
Review: 'Chinatown' is a good movie. Almost everything about the film is is fantastic, from the acting to the clever dialogue and storytelling. The only problem with it is the ending. The ending will cause alot of debate among people. But, nontheless, it is worth watch.
Rating:
Summary: A remarkable masterpiece
Review: It's too bad that Chinatown and Godfather II were both released in the same Oscar year, because both films are the two greatest in the post-WW II era. Godfather II gets the edge as the better of the two, i.e., the best film of our times. That said, none of this takes away from the pure brilliance of Chinatown. Like Godfather II, its understated script is a model of great writing, advancing the characters and the plot with every word. "I tried to keep someone from being hurt," Nicholson says, in the middle of the movie during its sole love scene, "and, instead, I made sure she was hurt." How many movies have a bedroom scene with dialogue that haunting in its ability to foreshadow? Chinatown remains the greatest of film noir by far because it extends the genre's possibilities while still remaining respectful of its traditions. The standard, thematic foundation remains true: A film noir protagonist enters a situation and assumes he's in complete control. But the situation actually has control of him - reality that the protagonist eventually recognizes, only far too late. Polanski's tone and legendary attention to detail are dead-on: Water emerges as not only an effective scene and mood setter, but an essential character, a symbol of purity corrupted. Chinatown is a labyrinth, not only because of its remarkably complex but perfectly executed plot, but with respect to mood and image. Mysterious gives way to murky, then melancholy. Cynicism gives way to hope, then to irreversible loss. Is the ending too dark? In today's 'artistic vision dictated by Hollywood marketing' world, yep. ('Waitaminute, lemme get this straight: The chick gets a slug in the eye and the little girl ends up with the old pervert? Honey, get me rewrite ...') But Polanski's conclusion is really the only way the movie should have ended, as opposed to Towne's preference to provide a glimmer of optimism. Acting wise, a brilliant ensemble, even down to a one-scene cameo by great character actor Charles Knapp as a hacking, engaging mortician. ("In the middle of a drought, a bum drowns. Only in L.A. ...") Dunaway was never more sympathetically conflicted. And it could be Nicholson's best performance ever. Save for a slight detour in a confrontational barber shop scene (in which he assumes his broad, 'rebel Jack' persona), it's easily his most subtle and multi-layered. His Jake is troubled by something, but Nicholson and Polanski leave it to the audience to discover what it is. Stack this alongside Nicholson's 1990s 'work' and you'd question whether it's the same actor. It isn't. Which is why film enthusiasts should savor Chinatown. Repeatedly.
Rating:
Summary: "Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown."
Review: This is probably either the best or of of the best movies since World War Two. The plot was beautifully portrayed through the brilliant direction of Roman Polanski and there's couldn't be anyone who could act out the part of Jake Gittes batter than Jack Nicholson. This movie should've won Best Picture at the Oscars but was robbed by The Godfather Part II.
Rating:
Summary: : )
Review: Jack sought back end cut But tightfisted Polanski Just gave him a slice
Rating:
Summary: the ending...
Review: i've read a lot of customer reviews saying that they didn't like the movie, it was overrated, and the ending was lame. I disagree disagree disagree! i read a review saying something like "why was it even called chinatown, it wasn't about chinatown?" this is simple. the story is about jake gittes. jake gittes saw some horrible things while working in chinatown; what he saw and participated in while working in chinatown contributes heavily to what he does in the film, and also his reactions to what happens around him. this is a guy who was forced to sit back and allow things to happen before, and he'll be damned if he lets that happen now. the ending is not horrible. the ending is perfect. look at the symmetry to it...this horrible bloody end occurs IN CHINATOWN, of all places. as for "overrated"...that's a horrible word. how can something be "overrated"? whether you like a movie or not should be based on what you bring to it. if you don't like it, you don't like it. you're not going to see why other people do like it. chinatown is a fine film, and the dvd transfer isn't too bad. i'd like to see it on a better transfer; it's not even a cut above the vhs transfer, but such is life.
Rating:
Summary: A weird, wonderful mindblower!
Review: Chinatown doesn't only hold up because of the excellent story. Because of the excellent DVD quality it's really hard to identify the time it has been made. Off course we know it's from the seventies because it's daring, weird and highly original and accompanied by one of the best soundtracks ever written (Jerry Goldsmith). Not daring & weird in a far fetched Polanski kind of way, but really believable and disturbing.It's one of the top 5 masterpieces ever made.The film also has a couple of kneeslapping 'unneeded' hilarity, for instance the scene where Jack Nicholson inspects one of the waterpipes with a couple of policemen, (we are now 1 h 39m 30 s into the film) when suddenly one of the cops makes a loud hickuppy kind of sound. They look at him and do not react. It's so sweet! I rented this copy but i'm going out tomorrow to buy it. The interview with Polanski & writers is far to short, but it's there, so that's good. The 5.1 surround sound is adding to the mood brilliantly. Wow!
Rating:
Summary: Ultimate film noir or ultimate film?
Review: The seventies provided us with three examples of Hollywood product that all but transcended the commercial circumstances of their making: Altman's "Nashville," Coppola's "Apocalypse Now," and Polanski's "Chinatown." Nothing since has come close to the vision, criticism of life, and even social/cultural verisimilitude of these three courageous, individualistic enterprises. "Chinatown" is closest to being commercial because of its genre type, but a comparison to any of the film noirs of the forties or to the more recent "L.A. Confidential" should reveal why the film succeeds at a much deeper level than any of these superficially related entertainments. Like T. S. Eliot, Polanski uses the image of water to portray first the cultural wasteland of a heartless, materialist landscape and second the sterility of human relations that are as lustless as they are loveless. Like Oedipus, the incestuous perversion of the story's "fisher-king" brings a curse upon a fallen land where all that remains, finally, is cynicism (Jake: "What do you expect? It's Chinatown.")
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