Chinatown Themes

The criminals in this movie aren't like the criminals on Cops, who routinely get caught when trying to ineptly climb a fence.Criminality in Chinatown takes the form of the ultimate white-collar cri...

We really only see one family in this movie—the Cross-Mulwray clan—and we don't get a very favorable impression, to say the least. Noah Cross impregnates his own daughter, Evelyn, who gives bir...

Money's at the center of this Chinatown: Cross has a lot of it and wants more; Jake is working as a P.I. in order to get it; Noah's cronies and henchmen are all money motivated. But money's valuabl...

Incest, water theft, and murder are all forms of injustice. Noah Cross betrays his daughter and destroys their relationship by impregnating her. He betrays the public by stealing all the water from...

There's a lot of manipulation going on in this movie. Noah hires Ida Sessions to trick Jake into setting Hollis up for adultery, which leads to Hollis's murder looking like a suicide. This, of cour...