I really wanted this film to work better than it did. Jack Nicholson's Jake Gittes character from Chinatown deserved a better sequel than this, however. That said, Nicholson is still a treat to watch as the resourceful private eye, and he even shows some skill behind the camera. The cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond is as wonderful as ever. Problems come mostly from the fact that Robert Towne's script can't let go of too many elements from the original film, and we the audience are left with one of those "could have been great" films.
The story picks up about a decade or so after the events in Chinatown. WWII is now over, and Jake Gittes has become a much more successful investigator, yet he still does the occasional adultery case. In the opening scenes of The Two Jakes, Gittes gets himself involved in one such case with deadly consequences. A man we are led to believe is a jealous husband (Keitel) hires Gittes to stake out a motel with him where his wife (Tilly) will be meeting her lover. The lover turns out to be Keitel's business partner, and Keitel shoots the man dead! This leaves Gittes as a possible accessory to murder! It's up to Gittes to clear his name and figure out if Keitel's fit of anger was just that, or if there are bigger things going on in the background. Well, of course there are! This is a Robert Towne script! Before we're done, we've got the housing industry, the oil industry, and a sex-crazed widow in the mix, as the story wildly jumps the tracks and eventually leads to an explosive conclusion.
That plot I have just described actually would have been enough for a great new film about Jake Gittes. Trouble is, Towne makes the mistake of digging up elements from Chinatown that seem awfully contrived as they are woven into the current plot. We learn early on for example that Gittes is still haunted by the memory of Faye Dunaway's character from Chinatown. Too much time is wasted digging up memories of her, even at one point having Gittes find her old butler and rehash old memories with him. In the last fifteen minutes, we also learn that Keitel's wife is really Dunaway's daughter from Chinatown. Yes, the one she had in an incestuous relationship with her father. This is just too much of a contrivance to swallow. There is simply no need to bring the Mulwray family back and try to weave them into this story! There are other problems with the story. We are told that Gittes in engaged, but we never really get to know his fiancé, and she is all but forgotten until a scene where she ends the whole affair with him. Richard Farnsworth is introduced as an unscrupulous oil man who may be doing great damage to the countryside with his illegal drilling practices. Yet, once this is revealed to us, nothing ever comes of it! I think the film probably suffered from too many re-writes. Trouble with Towne is, he knows he's a gifted writer. So he likely feels he needs to make things needlessly complicated in order to put his name on a script.
This film bombed badly in the theaters. this is probably due to the long production delays as much as anything. Too many people probably forgot how good Chinatown was to want to go see this film. It's too bad that The Two Jakes keeps trying to remind us.
6 of 10 stars.
The Hound.
The story picks up about a decade or so after the events in Chinatown. WWII is now over, and Jake Gittes has become a much more successful investigator, yet he still does the occasional adultery case. In the opening scenes of The Two Jakes, Gittes gets himself involved in one such case with deadly consequences. A man we are led to believe is a jealous husband (Keitel) hires Gittes to stake out a motel with him where his wife (Tilly) will be meeting her lover. The lover turns out to be Keitel's business partner, and Keitel shoots the man dead! This leaves Gittes as a possible accessory to murder! It's up to Gittes to clear his name and figure out if Keitel's fit of anger was just that, or if there are bigger things going on in the background. Well, of course there are! This is a Robert Towne script! Before we're done, we've got the housing industry, the oil industry, and a sex-crazed widow in the mix, as the story wildly jumps the tracks and eventually leads to an explosive conclusion.
That plot I have just described actually would have been enough for a great new film about Jake Gittes. Trouble is, Towne makes the mistake of digging up elements from Chinatown that seem awfully contrived as they are woven into the current plot. We learn early on for example that Gittes is still haunted by the memory of Faye Dunaway's character from Chinatown. Too much time is wasted digging up memories of her, even at one point having Gittes find her old butler and rehash old memories with him. In the last fifteen minutes, we also learn that Keitel's wife is really Dunaway's daughter from Chinatown. Yes, the one she had in an incestuous relationship with her father. This is just too much of a contrivance to swallow. There is simply no need to bring the Mulwray family back and try to weave them into this story! There are other problems with the story. We are told that Gittes in engaged, but we never really get to know his fiancé, and she is all but forgotten until a scene where she ends the whole affair with him. Richard Farnsworth is introduced as an unscrupulous oil man who may be doing great damage to the countryside with his illegal drilling practices. Yet, once this is revealed to us, nothing ever comes of it! I think the film probably suffered from too many re-writes. Trouble with Towne is, he knows he's a gifted writer. So he likely feels he needs to make things needlessly complicated in order to put his name on a script.
This film bombed badly in the theaters. this is probably due to the long production delays as much as anything. Too many people probably forgot how good Chinatown was to want to go see this film. It's too bad that The Two Jakes keeps trying to remind us.
6 of 10 stars.
The Hound.