Old Miller's Misoginy

Rating: Null/10 (19 January 2006)

I had low expectations of this movie  chiefly because my expectations of author and co-director Frank Miller have diminished radically in recent years. Twenty years ago Mr M. was one of the most innovative and challenging writers in the comic-book medium: his 'The Dark Knight Returns' is both an effective satire of the medium and an effective dystopian adventure story. Like the true masters of the genre, Eisner, Kirby and Moore, he recognised that, while graphic storytelling has much in common with prose narrative and still more with cinema, it was an entirely different medium that required a distinctive 'grammar'. While Miller was never a visionary in the same league as Eisner or Moore, and lacked the populist touch of Jack 'King' Kirby, he was one of the key writers in developing literate, intelligent comic-narrative.
Then, in the mid 1980s he started believing his own publicity. He refused to be edited, artists found him astonishingly difficult to work with, and most of his work  by the mid-1990s  was self illustrated or self published. What followed was a series of violent, misogynistic, neo-noir tales  stylish, visually distinctive, but ultimately with nothing to say. Initially these works were hailed as ironic, but, through repetition and an over reliance on cliché, it soon became clear that there was precious little irony intended.
Welcome to 'Sin City'.
On film as on the page, 'Sin City' is an oh-so-stylish mess. It looks great. Rodriguez, as cinematographer, and Art Director Jeanette Scott have captured much of what made Miller's artwork so interesting, but so much bloody time is spent trying to recreate these images that, particularly in the first third of the film, the pace is leaden. As this film is aimed at a mass-market such panel-by-panel reproductions are pointless  and, remember, I'm saying this as a confirmed and unrepentant comic-geek. That said, the use of stark whites and jet blacks is used very well in the final story. A little more consistency in certain visual areas  blood, for example, is variously white, black or red  would have been appreciated.
All the men are hard-as-nails, borderline psychotic and have hearts of gold. All the women are whores, betrayers, victims  or a combination of all three. No woman in 'Sin City' is perceived as anything other than a sex-object, of one sort or another. Rosario Dawson, Devon Aoki, Brittany Murphy et al are, therefore, unfeasibly attractive streetwalkers, yet  despite the acres of collective flesh they display during the course of the movie  Jessica Alba, the only one amongst them to have a 'no-nudity' clause in her contract, manages to be far sexier than the lot of them. I'm forced to admit, though, that, for all my criticisms of Miller's sexism, I'd probably have gone to see this film just for the sight of Alba in her cowgirl outfit.
As for the men? Powers Boothe, Michael Madsen and Michael Clark Duncan are criminally under-used. Benetio Del Toro is bloody awful. Clive Owen's attempt at an American accent is distracting. Mickey Rourke and Bruce Willis, as Marv and Hartigen  the two most interesting characters in the 'Sin City' graphic-novels, fare a little better. Willis has learned late in his career, it seems, that his more restrained performances are his best: in his less animated moments he's at his most expressive.
Ultimately this is a big stylish mess of a movie.
But Jessica Alba does look very nice in her cowboy outfit.