Chinatown

Jake Gittes is a former cop turned private detective in 1930s Los Angeles, most often employed to expose unfaithful spouses. When he is hired to catch Hollis Mulwray in the act, he finds out after the photographs have been published that the real Evelyn Mulwray was not the one paying his bill. Hollis turns up dead, and Jake starts to snoop further, winding up with a sliced nostril as he starts to get at well-protected secrets. Meanwhile, he and Evelyn strike up a romance, and he keeps on his path with the case as well as with her in spite of her father's warnings to reverse course. Roman Polanski remakes the crime noir in 1970s fashion, with more of an emphasis on the helplessness of a man to enact change, and inevitable doom of the femme fatale.