For anyone who happened on this review by chance, The Two Jakes is a sequel to Roman Polanski’s masterpiece Chinatown. It is impossible to talk about the sequel without talking about spoilerific events from the first film. Therefore, I want to completely discourage you from reading this review unless you have already seen Chinatown. This, by the way, is something that you should do because it’s as important to your cinematic experience as your first kiss was important to your life experience. If you haven’t seen Chinatown, you’re still a virgin in my eyes.

More than a decade and a World War had passed since the events of Chinatown. But while the war changed the lives of everyone involved, as well as the country itself, little has changed for Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson, reprising his role and also directing). Despite being a decorated war hero, he still finds himself a private investigator and still exposes adulterous behavior for anyone who hires him to do so. But sometimes the simplest cases have a tendency to turn their ugly heads and make things a lot worse than anyone involved can possibly imagine. It’s happened to Jake before, and it’s about to happen again.

During an otherwise typical sting on an adulterous woman, things go out of control. The husband (and second titular Jake) Jake Berman (Harvey Keitel, Mean Streets) ends up killing the man he catches screwing his wife while Gittes is patiently waiting in the adjacent room. As it turns out, the murdered man was Berman’s partner in their business venture building track homes for returning G.I.s. It turns out that the deceased’s real wife is going to be in serious financial trouble, because how the business was set up, all of the responsibility for it – as well as all the profits – would go to the surviving partner. Now it appears that Gittes has been set up, however unwittingly, as an accomplice to the murder. Making things even stranger and more interesting, the wiretap of the room reveled that the promiscuous couple were talking about a woman that could damage Jake Berman for good – Katherine Mulwray. The daughter of Evelyn Mulwray (Vanessa Redgrave’s character in Chinatown) a name is one that has haunted Gittes for years, and now could prove detrimental for all involved.

This is the first of many ways in which the story of The Two Jakes is tied back to Chinatown. This is both part of The Two Jakes charm, and also what ultimately holds it back. You see, while the surface plot of corruption in the California oil industry is easy enough to follow, The Two Jakes demands that you remember and remember well all of the minutiae of Chinatown, since almost all of it will come into play. This is fine for viewers like me who easily revisited Chinatown multiple times over (and in this case again the day before watching this film), but for the average filmgoer of 1990, I can imagine that they were more than a little lost. So not only is it impossible to enjoy this sequel to full capacity without having knowledge of the first film’s events, it actually renders the film useless as a standalone film because the script relies too heavily on unexplained events.

If you can actually get past this though, you might be able to enjoy The Two Jakes. The plot twists are natural and interesting even if the plot gets a little convoluted through the film linking. I really enjoyed being dragged along with the story. Harvey Keitel once again delivers a fine acting job, and Meg Tilly (The Big Chill) is an inspired choice to play Kitty Berman, Jakes adulterous wife with a very secretive past. I even thought that it was great that so many of the ancillary actors of Chinatown reprised their roles here. James Hong returns as Kahn, the Mulwray’s ex-maid. The incredibly underused Perry Lopez returns as Lou Escobar, Gittes’ ex-partner from when he worked as DA in Chinatown and there are other smaller cameos. In fact, most everything works as well as it should, and The Two Jakes could have been a great movie if not for a few glaring mistakes.

For me, there are two big ones – and they’re big. The first was casting Madeleine Stowe (Stakeout) as Lilian Bodine, the financially impared wife of the murdered half of B&B Homes. While not bad in other roles I’ve seen her in, which were admittedly less demanding, she sucks here as Bodine. What an incredibly great example of miscasting she is. While the attraction and coupling between Gittes and Mulwray in Chinatown made sense, this connection felt forced and thrown in as if someone was demanding a sex scene be included when no one else intended. Nothing resembling eroticism is felt, and while that may be the point, I really doubt her exaggerated forcefulness and on-a-dime emotional shifts were scripted as they ended up being shot. She’s so out-of-place that Gittes telling her “Honestly, I’m trying to be a gentleman about this. Now just, get down on your knees. Down on your knees. Stick your ass up in the air, and don’t move until I tell you.” is almost able to generate a smile not in an arousing way, but in a “Thank you, Jack Nicholson!” sort of way. It doesn’t matter how hot she truly does look in that agora sweater, her awful presence can’t be overlooked.

Aside from that one particularly bad scene though is the fact that instead of learning things through Jake’s first-hand experience as we did in the first go-round, this film is saddled with a more Marlowe/Spade style narration. The absence of this is one of the main things that separated Chinatown from other noir films and its inclusion here is baffling, because it’s used as traditional long-winded monologues when it could have been used (if at all) to better acclimate audiences with the connections to the first film, rather than assuming they will know this. Hey, I love noir films as much as the next guy, but Chinatown rose above standard conventions, and The Two Jakes is comfortable just being a forgettable part of a pack.

All that said, I still enjoy The Two Jakes for what it is, and I wouldn’t discourage anyone from watching it. But I wouldn’t tell anyone that they should see Chinatown just so that they can see The Two Jakes. They should do that anyway, because Polanski’s film is a brilliant work of art. This is just a lazy Sunday feature.

The DVD Presentation
Like Chinatown, The Two Jakes is now seeing a re-release as a Special Collector’s Edition DVD. I’ve never owned the original disc in this case, so I can’t say if it was improved upon in any way. The film is presented here in anamorphic widescreen and it looks acceptable, but little more than that. The picture is soft and the colors look slightly askew. It isn’t unwatchable, but I would think a sequel filmed 16 years after the original should look better – or at least as good – as the original. It doesn’t. For audio, there is a 5.1 Surround mix that works. Like Chinatown, action isn’t the main point of the film, but there are a few scenes that stand-out like an explosion at the beginning or the chaos in a police station later in the film. When it comes down to it, this is an average presentation for an average film. No one interested should be discouraged by this, but it isn’t going to sway anyone on the fence for a purchase either.

And the Extras Are?
Jack on Jakes – (18:20)
The only featurette on this set, Jack on Jakes is pretty much simply Jack Nicholson talking about The Two Jakes. He mentions how it came to be, the non-existent third film and why he chose to direct. A satisfying feature, it isn’t afraid to discuss the problems with the sequel, but at the same time Jack is quick to defend where he took the film and changes that he wanted from the script. Anyone interested in the film will want to check this feature out.

Theatrical Trailer – (3:09)
I love trailers, and since many DVDs are now excluding them, I’m pleased that Paramount saw fit to include the original trailer on this re-release – even if it is non-anamorphic.

I wish there was more, but at the same time, Jack on Jakes pretty much says everything that needs to be said and will probably answer any questions you might have.

The Bottom Line
I enjoyed The Two Jakes. Then again, I’ve also enjoyed The French Connection II, The Fly II and The Godfather Part III. Films like these have only one real problem, and that’s that the crime they have committed is not having feet big enough to fill the shoes of their prequels. That’s as true here as ever. The Two Jakes is certainly no Chinatown. That film is a masterpiece, and this is your average sleuthing film with only ties to the great original. It’s still an enjoyable way to pass the time, and it even delivers at points. Alas, The Two Jakes was neither a critical or financial success which is a shame because even with as flawed as this sequel is, I’m sure there is a spectacular ending to Gittes’ story. It disappoints me greatly that I’ll never see it completed.