I liked another person's comment that this is a "poor man's Chinatown," as it really describes this movie. It clearly seems to be an attempt to recreate the sort of drama and themes from Chinatown or, perhaps less closely, L.A.Confidential, but it fails to achieve the greatness of either film.
The film has very good production values in terms of settings, costumes, etc. Thus, it does a very good job of recreating a feeling of the period.
However, while the basic story is intelligent and has promise, and while on the whole the acting is fairly good, nothing at all shines in this film. It lacks any real, convincing, sense of brutality or evil, a feeling of foreboding, or tension. Rather than being tense or intense, it is simply bland and dull. The characters, the details of the story, the development, etc., all fail to create a true sense of convincing drama or to make one really care about what is going on, care about the characters, or feel strongly about anything. Even the nastiness of some of the baddies fails to convey much.
The film has very good production values in terms of settings, costumes, etc. Thus, it does a very good job of recreating a feeling of the period.
However, while the basic story is intelligent and has promise, and while on the whole the acting is fairly good, nothing at all shines in this film. It lacks any real, convincing, sense of brutality or evil, a feeling of foreboding, or tension. Rather than being tense or intense, it is simply bland and dull. The characters, the details of the story, the development, etc., all fail to create a true sense of convincing drama or to make one really care about what is going on, care about the characters, or feel strongly about anything. Even the nastiness of some of the baddies fails to convey much.