Chinatown - 1974 ***

I felt the same way about 'Chinatown' that I did about 'L.A.Confidential', which was that I was underwhelmed. Maybe I wasn't in the right mood to watch either and that can put me off watching anything, but I would have thought that a film which boasts tons of top 50 film lists would have pulled me in a bit more. Jack Nicholson is great and I find him a very bizarre actor. He did suit the 1930s get-up, but I was totally unimpressed by Faye Dunaway. Her character was completely non-descript and got on my nerves constantly. I liked the premise of the film, and the seedy, sweaty world which Nicholson seems to inhabit more than his own home, but the story was a bit of a jumble, and I suspect Polanski used a mish-mash of very successful film noirs to help him with the plot. I cannot call this a film noir, because it didn't have those qualities, I would simply call it a crime drama. One thing I did like about the film was how Nicholson lit up every scene he was in. The minute he appears in a room he takes it over so that you are concentrating on him and him alone, that is a pretty powerful trait to have as an actor these days.