Chinatown

Tali: Chinatown is a thriller/mystery/film-noir by acclaimed and controversial director Roman Polanski. Set in a post WWI era, the film centers around J.J. Gittes (brilliantly played by a young Jack Nicholson), a private investigator who is hired to solve the mysterious murder of a local (and hated) engineer. But this is no ordinary film - this is considered to be one of the best of the mystery genre - and so it is no surprise that this murder isn't so ordinary. The film is constantly twisting and turning and you may think you have the whole murder figured out before Gittes did.. but in true Polanski style you don't really have your shit together after all. What makes this film captivating and sets it apart really is the style - an homage to the film-noir genre that really gets to the heart and the depth of a situation.

Leo: Chinatown had an excellent premise. It was overall a very dense and well-constructed mystery. The storyline overall was excellent as well. There were no logical inconsistencies. The best part of the film is the method in which information was revealed; it seemed as if the events occurred in real-life, that is how it would have occurred. From start to finish the story built upon itself. Jack Nicholson is an absolute genius the way he portrays Jake, and I actually had the privilege of reading the Chinatown script before it was made into a movie (not before the movie was made, just the script before the changes it went through to become the movie). While the script was great, the movie really captures the subtexts that the script was missing. Without subtext, this is just another decent mystery, however, it's there and you feel it every second of the film.