The Two Jakes (1990)

The battles between the extraordinary screenwriter Robert Towne and the equally brilliant director Roman Polanski over Chinatown are legendary and best documented by Peter Biskind's wonderful book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. The Two Jakes is the kind of movie that Chinatown might have been, had those battles not occurred. It's a fascinating movie, a sequel to Chinatown that puts Towne's brilliant dialogue and prodigious research abilities on full display. It's also overlong and slackly paced. This is probably because star Jack Nicholson is no Polanski. He lacks the latter's ability to delve incisively into Towne's sprawling screenplay, giving The Two Jakes an unfocused feel. Directing the movie also put a strain on Nicholson's acting. He put on 40 pounds for the role to help convey one of the movie's themes, the sluggishness of middle age, but whose idea was it that he tramp through much of the movie with a big blocky gray hat and dark sunglasses? He looks like a stooge. Still, the movie has some rich compensations. Nicholson and director of photography Vilmos Zsigmond fill The Two Jakes with the amber tones of the setting sun, suggesting the antiquity of the late '40s and the echo of painful memories. The movie is a meditation on middle age, suffused with regrets and dying ideals, and it has some of the best writing Towne has ever done. You can really enjoy it for that, if you have the patience to sit through it. ~ Nick Sambides, Jr., All Movie Guide