A Beautifully Brutal Vision

Rating: 9/10 (17 April 2005)

Not every story can be told well in various mediums. There have been hundreds of books drained of the life poured from their authors' minds when they are transmogrified onto film. Writers are cautious when releasing their works to the wilderness of Hollywood, and Frank Miller felt no differently about his graphic novels. It took serious vision and commitment on the part of Robert Rodriguez to sway Miller's reservations. The story has been repeated in a multitude of magazine and newspaper interviews, and will probably become one of legend. The collaboration between the co-directors results in a jaw-dropping (and frequently jaw-pounding) mix of real actors in a convincingly gritty fantasy world.
The story is a series of 4 (or 5  depending on how you look at them) short stories about the denizens of Basin City. Some stories interconnect, and others just graze each other in non-linear fashion. The Man (Josh Hartnet) opens the film by fulfilling an unusual contract. Bruce Willis' aged cop (Hartigan) puts retirement and his health on the line to save a little girl from a pedophile (Nick Stahl). Like most of the stories, it is simultaneously moving and a grotesque display of machismo. Marv (an unrecognizable Mickey Rourke) is a Quasimodo-like ex-con teetering on the edge of mental illness when he is graced with the affections of Goldie (Jamie King). She is murdered in his bed, and he is left to take the fall. A vicious instinct for revenge seizes him and he demolishes half the thugs and police in the city to satiate his thirst. A waitress (Brittany Murphy) and Dwight (Clive Owen) begin a face-off with an overly-possessive ex-boyfriend (Benicio Del Toro), and Rosario Dawson's "Gail" brings her gang of prostitutes in to finish it. The cop, Hartigan, returns to continue protecting the little girl, Nancy, who has now grown up into Jessica Alba.
The entire production creates an incredibly tangible comic book world. Many people are praising "Sin City" as the most faithful comic book adaptation to date. It is so faithful, in fact, that frames and scenes from the movie compare directly to the graphic novels. Rodriguez pitches the cast into the black and white world utilizing the extreme breadth of contrast that shooting on high definition video allows between light and dark. Combining the black and white images of actors with backgrounds created almost entire in computers makes such artful renditions possible. Splashes of digitally-added color draw both visual and emotional focus. Everything from production design and camera movements to acting style is over-the top. Villains and those who are relative heroes are all driven by absolute conviction and deliberate force of will. Miller provided the blueprint for this crazed city. Rodriguez and his cast flesh things out in well-mimicked fashion.
It is impossible to comment on everyone in the cast without exceeding the limit of this review. Most outstanding is surprisingly 1980's film star Mickey Rourke. He sinks completely into his portrayal of Marv. Although the prosthetic make-up hides his physical features, he does more than strut a thuggish tough guy persona. Rourke finds the mix of a man who revels in his own excessive brute strength (and when Marv is brutal  hold on to your seat) while also being afraid of crossing some thin moral line within himself. Clive Owen and Benicio Del Toro make great adversaries, and it is delectable that most of it is verbal. (It is rumored that their big scene is the one directed by Quentin Tarantino.) Michael Clark Duncan, Nick Stahl and especially Elijiah Wood all bring fearsome qualities to their villains. Almost equally astonishing to all of those performances is the fact that Rodriguez was able to coax a believable screen presence out of Jessica Alba, who, to date, has gotten by largely on her looks. (If you have ever gotten through an entire episode of "Dark Angel", you're a far more dedicated fan than I.) It is crucial for the grown-up Nancy Callahan to be more (if only just slightly) than a dynamite male fantasy figure or else the sacrifices made by Bruce Willis's Hartigan are merely the antics of an overgrown boy with either a crush or denied naïveté. Willis is, interestingly enough, playing an older character. He does so by bringing out more than normal regret and self-loathing with his usual swagger. "Hartigan" is richer for it.
A visit to "Sin City" is not a vacation for everyone. It is more palpable than "Pulp Fiction", and more stylized than any comic book movie before it. Robert Rodriguez undeniably proves his skills as a digital and dramatic visionary. Much like El Greco's paintings are dark portraits of odd characters from the Middle Ages, Miller's "Sin City" is a dark vision of unusual characters given life on digital celluloid. This is a work that is about vastly imperfect heroes who each pay a price for making decisions based on their private senses of honor. The kids can skip this adult comic. For the rest who might be brave enough, come on down; the blood in the water is just fine.
9 out of 10