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| Source: Wikipedia |
Despite the title, of the story actually happens in Chinatown; most of it concerns the Los Angeles water supply in the Silver Age of the silver screen. Water, not Asians. In California, only one of these runs in short supply.
Even then, detective work sucked. But the typical detective personality makes hard work harder. He's a cynical, morally murky, antagonistic mercenary. The perpetual poverty intrinsic to the vocation doesn't help.
When work dries up like water in the desert sun, the alleged hero resorts to dirty jobs. He secretly photographs adulterers and distributes those incriminating Polaroids and accidentally detonates marriages. Amid the sleazy paparazzi moonlighting, he strikes a gusher: the water wars.
Digging around, he unearths weird shit. Disappearing water, dead people, and forged land records signed by long-dead people. As payment for services rendered, he receives a tax-free helping of trouble. A slit nostril keeps his smug mug in bandages for a predominant portion of the film.
Apparently moving water around is serious business. Divert it from farmland, dump it in the ocean, and people freak out and start cutting up noses.
To keep the detective on edge, he bumps into the requisite femme fatale. The daughter of a wealthy water mogul (which exist -- California), she has more issues than a water tower made of mosquito netting. Her typical L.A. marriage problems, like infidelity and murder, escalate into kidnapping and even more murder and the police doing as little as possible about it. Which makes more room to work for our anarchic detective.
The consensual underage incest subplot becomes skeevier in retrospect considering director Roman Polanski's later scandals. And the infuriating ending only makes it worse.
What's there to do when you witness something horrible that there's nothing you can do about? Forget it, it's Chinatown.
131 minutes.
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