I wish I had minions.

Usually, I am all about the villain. If I was ever in a movie, I would definitely be the villain. When I'm watching movies, I tend to pay really close attention to the villain. If I know who it is, I study their every move. If I don't have any idea, I try to figure it out. Sometimes I'm surprised, sometimes I'm not. Unfortunately, the villain in Chinatown was kind of disappointing.

Noah Cross. Rich, power-hungry, incest, overall jerk. Just not the best villain. Now, I cannot deny that he gets the job done. He starts strong by indirectly getting Gittes to investigate Mr. Mulwray (I'm still not entirely sure why). He continues his positive streak with murder. So far, even though it's unbeknownst to everyone else, Noah Cross is doing a pretty good job at villainy. After Mulwray's murder, Cross begins to slip a little. Enter the minions on cue. Normally, I have no problem with the use of minions for shady deals and dirty deeds. In the context of the film, however, it was not ideal. Considering that the identity of the villain wasn't revealed until the end of the film, nobody knew who the minions were working for. It seemed as though they were acting of their own accord, although this is rare for minions and such. I don't think that the minion-Noah Cross relationship should have been shown explicitly, but it would have been nice to have a clue or two as to who they answer to. Although the presence of the minions wasn't perfect, it wasn't a disaster. They added style to the villainy. Nobody really expected the midget minion (Polanski) to actually cut Gittes, but he followed through (which of course resulted in a horrified gasp from the audience). That is the mark of good villainy. Unfortunately, Cross' minions have hardly any screen time and the audience is forced back into guessing the villain's identity. When Noah Cross is finally revealed as the bad guy, it's a bit of a disappointment. Clearly he's bad. He raped his daughter, killed her husband, and seriously messed up Jack Nicholson's face. But there isn't anything really memorable about him. He didn't have any weird little quirks or trademarks, he didn't do anything so paramount that the entire world was in danger, there just wasn't anything that set him apart from all of the other villains in the world. A bit of a let down.

And has anybody else noticed that Jack Nicholson is a total creeper in most of his films? Yeah. Think about it...