Chinatown

If I were grading the movie strictly on technical competency, acting, script, style, all the things that make a movie work, Chinatown would get the full monty or damned close. But I have to also grade it as to how much I liked it, and … it was fine. It was good. But it wasn’t great. The cast of characters can get unwieldy and hard to track, which muddles the mystery. Compounding that is how some developments just sorta happen with no build or visible A-to-B logic. And the runtime is bloated. This did not need more than two hours at all, especially when the legendary ending is a wet fart. Yeah I said it. Come at me. But the acting is good here (minus Faye Dunaway’s randomly occurring accent), and the atmosphere is excellent. A hard-boiled film noir in sunny Southern California sound crazy, but it’s different and memorable. Overall, it’s a solid movie, but maybe what I’m discovering is I’m not a noir fan. They're not bad, but they don’t fully connect with me, regardless of their technical excellence. Still a good watch, but not outstanding.