Comic-neo-noir

Rating: 7/10 (28 July 2012)

Sin City, Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez,and Quentin Tarantino (special guest director), 2005
Frank Miller's comic book comes to life in a movie that has all the elements of noir but none of the sensibilities. It's quite a leap from the gritty realism of noir to comic book figures who are just affectations of the basic noir characterizations, but this one isn't shy about making the attempt. And it has all the elements: voice-over, tough guys, dangerous femmes, hard-boiled dialog, fringe characters, the 'bad part of town,' nihilism, and a dark ending that resolves nothing.
The film makes no apologies about being a comic book which is, after all, a big part of its appeal for its fans. And the cast is top notch with more beautiful women than I can remember seeing in a film - ever. And the tough guys - there are three of them - are tough like only comic book characters can be (those guys can either take a punch or they were shot with really small bullets). But, really, they all come off as cheap knock-offs of noir characters. But hey, it's a comic book.
And the movie is lots of fun. Jessica Alba's cowgirl bar top dance is a great Hollywood moment as she pulls off something that can't be easy: very effectively playing a stripper without taking her clothes off. There really is no plot just three loosely woven story lines but it really doesn't matter. This film caters to adolescent male fantasies about violence and women.
But the movie is what it is. The real problem is that Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino think that violence is funny. And that's not noir