Review

‘Two Jakes’ poor
Chinatown sequel

THE TWO JAKES. Starring Jack
Nicholson, Meg Tilly, Harvey Keitel,
Ruben Blades. Directed by Jack Nichol-
son. At Famous Players Theatres.

An the parlance of decades past, every-
thing is not jake about The Two Jakes.

What a disappointment for fans of the
mid-Seventies film Chinatown, an excel-
lently written whodunit and a damning ex-
pose of the machinations of the wealthy in
late-Thirties America. Ever since the word
leaked out several years ago that Chinatown
star Jack Nicholson was working on a se-
quel, we’ve been watching the theatre pages
with the singular attention worthy of private
eye, J.J. Gittes.

J.J., or Jake Gittes, was Nicholson’s char-
acter in the original film — directed by
Roman Polanski — who uncovered a plot
by civic and private forces in Los Angeles to
force farmers in the adjacent valley off their
land by means of an artificial drought. Mur-
der, incest and corruption that reached into
the city bureaucracy were the products of a
decadent, power mad elite seeking yet fur-
ther wealth and power at the expense of
innocents.

“Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown,” the final
line in Robert Towne’s first-rate script, be-
came part of cinematic lore with its ironic
and racist dismissal of the crimes of a de-
cidedly non-Chinese group of power brok-
ers. Combining elegance, cinematography,
mystery and fine acting, Chinatown is a
classic of the stylish thriller genre.

Cinematography is about all the long-
awaited sequel has. The Two Jakes, which
picks up the story of Gittes in the consumer-
driven L.A. of 1948, utterly lacks the finesse
of its predecessor, or even the competence
of an acceptable detective yarn.

Gittes, returned from the war a hero, has
resumed his private eye practice which con-
sists mainly of spying on adulterous spouses
with the aim of securing divorces for clients.
In The Two Jakes, one such case goes ser-
iously wrong when Gittes’ client—also
named Jake—guns down the man who is in
sexual liaison with the client’s wife.

There’s more to this than meets the eye,
naturally. It turns out the second Jake has
shot his business partner. He now stands to

acquire the partner’s share of the real estate
assets, which just happen to be located on
former orange groves, which in turn figured
largely in the Chinatown story.

As the convoluted story unravels, Gittes
finds himself meeting more and more ghosts
from Chinatown. He also discovers the dis-
puted land has far more than housing plots
— it sits on a virtual lake of oil.

The false leads and complex intrigues
outnumber the period cars and art deco
facades in The Two Jakes, and these are
elements of good detective writing. China-

_town had them in spades, and part of that
film’s fascination was the discovery of how
seemingly unrelated phenomena resolved
into a single purpose.

Alas, in the sequel, writer Towne has lost
it— or perhaps, his screenplay was serious-
ly altered. The Two Jakes’ numerous devel-
opments and characters are distracting
rather than intriguing. They appear con-
trived, rather than organic. Long before the
credits roll, serious boredom sets in.

Possibly aware of this during the long,
reportedly torturous making of The Two
Jakes, the creators tried to spark things with
scenes of sexuality that do not ignite any-

a

avail.

one’s passions, violent confrontations that
are unnecessary and excessive (fisticuffs,
guns and knives were used sparingly and
integrally in Chinatown) and explosions.
The latter are the only things that really catch
fire in this fizzler of a film.

Worst of all, the revelation of The Two
Jakes is trivial, and lacks the political punch
of that in Chinatown. Perhaps the sequel
suffered in lacking the sure hand of Polanski
(who reportedly did tamper with the screen-

JAMES HONG, JACK NICHOLSON ... film resurrects ghosts of Chinatown, to little

play to give Chinatown its appropriately
dark ending).

It costs a lot to go to the movies now-
adays. For the price of admission, you can
rent Chinatown as a video and couple it with
True Confessions, a film related in period
and theme — a cop drama about the mach-
inations of the corrupt rich in southem
California — for a much better evening’s
viewing.

— Dan Keeton

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Pacific Tribune, August 27, 1990 « 7