Themes: Dangerous Attraction, Private Eyes, Cons and Scams
Main Cast: Jack Nicholson, Harvey Keitel, Meg Tilly, Madeleine Stowe, Eli Wallach
Release Year: 1990
Country: US
Run Time: 137 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
The Two Jakes is the much-delayed and rather convoluted sequel to the 1975 classic Chinatown. Released in 1990 after an abortive stab at shooting that began in the mid-'80s, the film was the subject of a creative feud between its principals, star Jack Nicholson, producer Robert Evans, and screenwriter Robert Towne. Private eye Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is a middle-aged war hero, paunchy, snobbish about his golf game, and about to marry a lovely and much younger woman. Then a fleeting reference to a woman he once loved that he heard on a wire recording plunges him into a past he has tried to escape. It comes while he was spying on a philandering wife (Meg Tilly) and her paramour in her motel room for her husband, Jake Berman (Harvey Keitel). Then Berman shocks Gittes when he shoots his wife's lover. Gittes is doubly stunned when he learns that Berman was partners with the dead man in a subdivision that may contain huge oil deposits. So now Gittes wonders, was it justifiable homicide or murder? The answer lies in the wife (Madeleine Stowe) of the dead man, her shady oil baron friend (Richard Farnsworth), and in the past he has tried to avoid. ~ Nick Sambides, Jr., All Movie Guide
Review
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
Frederic Forrest - Chuck Newty; Rubén Blades - Mickey Nice; David Keith - Loach; Richard Farnsworth - Earl Rawley; Tracey Walter - Tyrone Otley; Joe Mantell - Lawrence Walsh; James Hong - Kahn; Jeff Morris - Tilton; Rebecca Broussard - Gladys; Paul A. DiCocco, Jr.; Allan Warnick - Rippey; Susan Forristal - Delores; Will Tynan - Judge Dettmer; Van Dyke Parks - Francis Hannah; William Duffy - Desk Sergeant; Sue Carlton - Mattie Rowley; Jessica Z. Diamond - Receptionist; Faye Dunaway - Evelyn Mulwray; Bob George - Bar Maitre d'; Randi Ingerman - Lana; Perry Lopez - Capt. Lou Escobar; John Herman Shaner - Saul; Michael Shaner - Benny; Rosie Vela; Lee Weaver - Caddy #1; Luana Anders - Florist; Dean Hill - Cop with Parrot; Tom Waits - Plainclothes Policeman; Don McGovern - Bartender; Jonathan Hackett
Credit
Richard Schreiber - Art Director, Alan Finkelstein - Associate Producer, Wayne A. Finkelman - Costume Designer, Jack Nicholson - Director, Anne Goursaud - Editor, Van Dyke Parks - Composer (Music Score), Jeremy Railton - Production Designer, Richard Sawyer - Production Designer, Vilmos Zsigmond - Cinematographer, Robert Evans - Producer, Harold Schneider - Producer, Jerry Wunderlich - Set Designer, R.J. Hohman - Special Effects, Robert Towne - Screenwriter, Albert Lloyd Alexander - Grip
It was released by Paramount Pictures on August 10, 1990. The film was neither a box office nor critical success. Plans for a third film about the character of J.J. Gittes near the end of his life have been abandoned.
Gittes, under scrutiny for his unwitting part in the crime, must figure out if it was justifiable homicide or murder and how it connects with California's booming oil industry. There is also a connection to his own past after Gittes stumbles upon a wire recording during the investigation that mentions Katherine Mulwray, the daughter of ill-fated Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) from Chinatown.
Screenwriter Robert Towne originally planned a trilogy of movies involving private investigator J.J. Gittes. The third movie, called Cloverleaf, was to take place in the 1950s and concerned the creation of the L.A. Freeway.[1]
Originally, producer Robert Evans was to play the "second" Jake but Towne, who was going to direct the film at that time, did not think he was the right choice and fired him. Nicholson ended up directing the film and not Towne.
