Noir November: Chinatown (1974)

One of many classic movies that I start to review with both glee and immense trepidation, Chinatown is a film that you can't help thinking everyone already knows plenty about. Yet there's also the hope that some people either haven't heard of it or somehow haven't heard enough praise for it, and if any extra review added on to the mountain of glowing praise already out there can help then I'm all for that. Of course, it's unlikely, but I like to dream such little dreams.

On the surface, Chinatown is all about a detective named Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) hired to follow a man (Darrell Zwerling) and report on his actions. He believes that he was hired by the man's wife, but things start to twist and turn when he meets people who dispute his take on the situation. As Jake tries to figure out why he may have been set up, he gets deeper and deeper into a mystery that could end up getting him in some big trouble, at the very least. He could even lose his nose.

Dammit. Just looking at the vague paragraph above has made me sigh, realising that I'll never be able to summarise the sheer brilliance of this movie in standard review form. The beauty comes from the details, but those same details must be avoided here for the sake of people who have yet to discover the film. So ignore my attempt to sketch out the plot in the broadest strokes possible and let's just move on.

The direction from Roman Polanski is spot on, with every sequence playing out as a masterclass in how to make a gorgeous film about unpleasantness, but he's helped immensely by a perfect script from Robert Towne. Perhaps things weren't fully locked into place in earlier drafts, but Polanski himself crafted the final reel, which ended up being for the best. The two men are, as becomes clear throughout the movie, working at the top of their game, allowing them to craft what could be considered the best film either has been involved with (despite stiff competition from many other great movies).

Of course, it's a testament to the quality of the film, and the craft on display, that it could also be considered a career-best movie for many of the cast members. Nicholson is on his best form throughout, tempering that famous grin and demeanour with moments of clarity and incisiveness showing why Gittes is such a great detective. Faye Dunaway is a fragile delight, and John Huston is the overbearing polar opposite (playing Noah Cross, a man who can afford to have anyone in his pocket, if he so wishes it). Perry Lopez, John Hillerman, Diane Ladd, Burt Young, Bruce Glover and Joe Mantell also do great work. In fact, the standard of the acting across the board is so fantastic that I just want to reel off the entire cast list. But I won't.

Chinatown is one of those pure movie experiences that you can watch repeatedly and rarely grow tired of. It's one of those films that you will always want to watch to from start to finish, with no interruptions (or, at least, as few as possible). The cinematography, the Jerry Goldsmith score, the dialogue, the characters, THAT ending. Every single aspect of the movie is, for my money, perfect. Anyone wanting to disagree with me? Forget it . . . . . . it's Chinatown.

10/10

http://www.amazon.com/Chinatown-Blu-ray-Faye-Dunaway/dp/B00AEFXN46/ref=tmm_blu_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-2&qid=1415399781

Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects (1989)

Charles Bronson is a tough guy, once again, in this piece of sleazy nastiness from director J. Lee Thompson. Of course, Bronson was always a tough guy in pretty much everything he did so, don't worry, I'll give you a bit more about his situation this time around.

Bronson is a cop who can't seem to pin anything on horrible uber-pimp Duke (Juan Fernandez). Duke specializes in little girls for his clients, which leads to Bronson specializing in making Duke's life as difficult as possible. It's not all by the book. In fact, it's about as far from the book as you can get. The clock starts to tick faster when a Japanese businessman (James Pax) turns to the police when his young daughter is kidnapped. The distraught father also has a few peccadilloes of his own, and Bronson may not be too happy about helping him if he finds out just what he's been up to since arriving in America.

Written by Harold Nebenzal, Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects is, in many ways, standard Bronson fare, yet it's also a bit different. His character is forced, albeit momentarily, to question how his mind works when he's not on the job, to consider the damage done and the huge difference between his own view of the world and the view that others can take. There are times when this creeps into territory covered by the likes of Tightrope and The Offence. And then there are times when Bronson forces someone to eat a watch.

Director J. Lee Thompson is well known for a filmography that's pretty loaded with testosterone, and he worked with Bronson on a number of movies before this one (this was their last film together), so viewers shouldn't have been TOO surprised by the end result this time around. It may have some extra unpleasantness, but it's still all about Bronson doing a good job where the system falls down.

Bronson is fine in the lead role, whether he's aggressively scaring pimps and crooks or going off on a bizarre racist rant aimed at numerous Japanese people he views as pesky interlopers, at one point. Fernandez is suitably loathsome as Duke, and Pax is, arguably, one of the more interesting characters to be placed in a movie like this. It's made clear that he's not the nicest guy ever, especially in the way that he treats his wife, but he's also not demonised for his actions, despite the one main sequence that sees him sliding from relatively harmless thoughts of his fantasties to grossly inappropriate real actions. Peggy Lipton and Amy Hathaway are just fine as the women in Bronson's life, Perry Lopez does well enough as Eddie Rios, Sy Richardson is a bad man who works with Duke, and fans of Nicole Eggert will be pleased to see her in a relatively early role.

It might leave you wanting to take a shower as the end credits roll, but this is another fine piece of Bronson-led machismo for those who like such fare. And I count myself among that demographic nowadays.

7/10

http://www.amazon.com/10-Midnight-Kinjite-Charles-Bronson/dp/B008FYZIZK/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1405919498&sr=1-1&keywords=kinjite