Jake Gittes Character Analysis: The Detective Who Was Set Up to Fail
Noah Cross hired Jake Gittes for his "nasty reputation" and used it against him. The fake Evelyn Mulwray, the staged photographs, the "find the girl" reframe — the whole case was built to steer Jake's instincts where Cross needed them to go. A character analysis of the Chinatown (1974) protagonist Robert Towne built to be the right kind of wrong man for the job: vain enough to take the bait, professional enough to follow the trail, formed by years of divorce work to misread everything he sees. The trap was set before he walked in.
