The Two Jakes

Released 1990
Stars Jack Nicholson, Harvey Keitel, Meg Tilly, Madeleine Stowe, Eli Wallach, Ruben Blades, David Keith, Richard Farnsworth
Directed by Jack Nicholson

Here at long last is Jack Nicholson's "The Two Jakes," seven years in the trade papers, center of prolonged teeth-gnashing at Paramount Pictures, and it turns out to be such a focused and concentrated film that every scene falls into place like clockwork; there's no feeling that it was a problem picture. It's not a thriller and it's not a whodunit, although it contains thriller elements and at the end we do find out whodunit. It's an exquisite short story about a mood, and a time, and a couple of guys who are blind-sided by love.

The movie takes place in postwar Los Angeles - the 1940s of the baby boom and housing subdivisions - instead of the 1930s city where "Chinatown" was set. It's not such a romantic city anymore. And private eyes like J. J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson) are a little more worn by time and care. The Gittes of "Chinatown" was the spiritual brother of Philip Marlowe. But now it is after the war, and Gittes has moved out of the two-room suite into a building of his own. He heads a staff of investigators. He belongs to a country club and has a fiancee and has put on some weight. One of these days he's going to stop calling himself an investigator altogether and become a security consultant.

The point of "The Two Jakes" is that love and loss are more important than the mechnical distribution of guilt and justice. When Nicholson and Keitel, as the two Jakes, have their final exchange of revelations, it is such a good scene because the normal considerations of a crime movie are placed on hold. The movie really is about the values that people have, and about the things that mean more to them than life and freedom. It's a deep movie, and a thoughtful one, and when it's over you can't easily put it out of your mind.

Summary by Roger Ebert

Warning: don't even try watching this movie unless you've seen "Chinatown" first and remember it pretty well, because much of this sequel's mood and plot depend on the original.

"The Two Jakes" doesn't spoon feed the audience its story. It lays it out and expects us to keep up. We have to make the same deductions that Jake makes, regardless of whether he verbalizes them or not. What I liked most about this convoluted mystery is how we figure it out along with Jake, because we don't have any knowledge that he doesn't. Also, the story doesn't lead you this way and that, setting up false leads that it's this person or that one. It's a lot smarter than that and doesn't rely on a single person's guilt. Instead, there's a very complicated situation that involves many different people, and the story is peeled back like an onion--much like the original. I liked the original a great deal, but I was dissatisfied with the ending. This one holds together all the way through. --Bill Alward, September 1, 2001