Media Movie Review Assignment on China Town (Movie Review Sample)

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Chinatown Movies
The China town film is set in 1937 in the city of Los Angels.it involves a hired private investigator named Jake Gittes who is to watch and spy on Hollis Mulwray who was the city’s chief water engineer. Glittes is hired by Evelyn, a woman who claims to be a wife to Mulwray. Hollis on the other hand spend much of his time in water runoff and dry river bed investigations. Glittes eventually catches Hollis with a young lady and then takes them a photograph, which later became a scandal in the news. Glites eventually learns that the woman who hired her was not the wife to Hollis. Evelyn seeing the matter is out of hand visits Jakes in his office and threatens to sue him for defamation.
In the movie, people suspect the city department government of perpetual scandal. In spite of drought and new proposals to build a dam, the department of water and power purposely releases fresh water into the ocean during the night. Hollis being the engineer opposes the dam construction claiming that it could be disastrous due to weak geological formation of rocks, though he had previously proposed another dam construction that failed due to the same geological reasons. Mulwray Hollis due to his stand faces great opposition and ridicule from the farmers who want the dam to be constructed so that they can get water.
Jake eventually goes to Hollis house in order to speak to him but only finds Evelyn. Evelyn talks to him and tells him that Mulwray’s may be at the reservoir since he usually takes afternoon walk there. Glittes eventually goes to look for Hollis where he was instructed he could find him but instead, only find the policemen there with the dead body of Hollis, which was retrieved from the pool. They were busy trying to investigate the cause of his drowning. Coincidentally the chief investigator is Lt. Escobar, who Jake used to work with while he was a policeman. Mrs. Mulwray eventually hires Jake Gittes to carry out investigation on her husband. Gittes eventually learns that the lungs of Hollis was filled with salt water but the body was found on freshwater pool which arouses doubts about his death.
Gittes eventually receives a call from Ida, the woman who feigned to be Mrs. Mulwray, who admitted that she was paid to play tricks on Jake. The woman declines to meet Jakes to spill the bins on what conspired but instead tells Jake to look at obituary column of that day. Later at water department, Gittes sees photograph of Noah Cross, a man who had quarreled with Hollis a few days before he was discovered death. But to Jake’s surprise, Cross invites him for lunch and requests him to investigate on the girl Hollis was seeing that she might know about Hollis death. Jake acting on a hint that he had got, begins to investigate the fresh water supply scandal. He travels to a certain farmer to investigate how he irrigates his land but unluckily, he is shot down and beaten till he was unconscious by the farmer. Eventually, Evelyn comes to his rescue and he explains to her on his findings.
At Evelyn’s house, Jake share a romantic moment with her as they lie on the bed. Evelyn tries to investigate about Jakes past as a police officer. Jake tells her that he once worked at China town as a police officer but regrets on his action that led to a woman being hurt and murdered. Then when a call rang and Evelyn talked, he hurriedly rushed and left Jake telling him to trust on him. Glittes eventually follows Evelyn and finds her with Mulwray’s girlfriend who was crying. Evelyn claimed that the young woman was her sister and was crying since he had learned just learned of Hollis’ death in the newspaper. Later at night, Jake was called by detective Loach who tells him they should meet. When he eventually meets him, he discovers that Loach, a girl he had spoken with in the phone has been murdered. The cops tells him they suspect she was murdered since she knew the story on salt water being found in Hollis lungs. Lt. Escobar suspect that Evelyn might have been involved in Mulwray’s death.
When Jake confronts Evelyn to know the truth, he founds her with her incest daughter Katherine, it was then that he discovered that Cross was behind the death of Hollis. He tries to help Evelyn to escape together with her daughter but unluckily, Evelyn is shot dead by the cops as she tried to escape using his car.
The dishonesty of authority figures is one of the main theme depicted in the Chinatown film. It suggest that in Chinatown getting a leader who is honest and trustworthy is almost a myth. It depicts that people in power feign their real nature of who they are. For instance, Cross uses the power of money, to control the people around him for personal gains. Also, Lt. Escobar, a man who justice is put in his hand tries all means to ensure that true justice does not prevail. Even he leads to the killing of Evelyn, an innocent woman. In China town, crime can be done so long as you hold power and corruption seems to be the order of the day.
Another theme depicted is the helplessness of less influential people in the face of evil. In Chinatown, a common person is so hard escape injustices, especially the evil of corruption. Corruption seemed widespread almost everywhere. For instance, Jake admits to have lost a woman years back while in Chinatown due to the forces of prevailing evils. He again loses Evelyn due to the evil that prevailed as she was shot by the cops...