Rating: R
Genre:
Mystery
Theatrical Release: 08/10/1990(USA)
Release Date: 07/26/2008
SubTitles: English/French/Espanol/Por
Dubbed: English/French/Espanol/Por
Sound: DD5.1/DDS2.0/DD1
Run Time: 137 Minutes
Flags: Violence, Nudity, Adult Situations, Not For Children, Profanity, Sexual Situations
Distributor/Studio: Paramount
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