Sin City: Booze, Broads and Bullets at Their Best!

Rating: 10/10 (29 March 2008)

The best way to shoot as film noir is in black and white, and Sin City's director, Robert Rodriguez, seemed to know that well. Sin City is a wild, ferocious pack of violence, gore, S-M/leather-dressed babes, mutilations and hardcore motherf***ers that kill people either to get revenge for the death of a prostitute or to save a sexy 19-year old table dancer from a multiple child-rapist. Not the average people's idea of a film noir but it's still good. The best of its kind actually, Sin City brings comic book adaptations to movies to a whole new level where it's hard to reach. Because Sin City is not simply inspired by a comic book. It IS the comic book.
Director Robert Rodriquez, alongside with the creator of the comic book series that inspired this movie, takes us to a trip in a decayed city that is ruled by corrupted politicians and cops, through the stories of three men that include a lot of women. First, is a story of revenge. Marv, exceptionally played by a Frankenstein-face-shaped Mickey Rourke, wakes up next to a dead hooker who had given him the time of his life and promises that he will take revenge. Then comes the story of a modern knight, Dwight (Clive Owen), who tries to save the city's prostitutes from the mob and the pimps. The third story is about a decent and actually good police officer by the name of Hartigan (Bruce Willis) who gets set up by the state's corrupted governor (Powers Boothe) whose son is a child-rapist pervert (Nick Stahl). And if this super-star cast is not enough to impress you, add the hottest Jessica Alba you've ever seen, the tight-leather dressed Rosario Dawson, the drunk and crazy Benicio Del Toro, the massive Michael Clark Duncan, the cannibal Elijah Wood and finally the seductive Brittany Murphy.
And it's not only the exceptional acting that makes this movie unique. Rodriquez decided to use as a script and as a storyboard the comic book itself, and that is why he called in its creator to co-direct the movie. The entire movie is created with computer graphics except of course the actors, their props and some small sets. One would imagine an effect similar to the one in "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" where the result looked rather fake-ish and idiotic. What Rodriquez managed to accomplish is a city with the dark and sinister feeling that Frank Miller's city ought to have. Inside their black and white environment, one can notice certain colorful objects such as a babe's lipstick, another one's blonde hair, one's blue, green or golden eyes, red shoes and red blood. And there is a lot of it. Shown either dark red or fluorescent white, blood is something this movie is not missing at. And that is because Rodriguez and Miller did not use some cheap tricks and cuts to get their movie a PG-13 rating like many Hollywood directors use to do. They went all the way. They even hired Rodriguez's pal, Quentin Tarantino, as a "special guest director" for one dollar, to do a scene where Dwight talks with a corpse inside a car full of dead bodies.
Those of you who feel disgusted by the description so far, don't go watch the movie, it gets much worse. You might be used to Rodriguez as a family director for his last lame movie series, "Spy Kids", but in Sin City Rodriguez shows his true self making a movie alike legendary "Pulp Fiction" but in black and white. Forget the innocent little Frodo and get ready to face a bloodthirsty cannibal. In fact, forget everything you knew about movies until know. Sin City is an uncompromising vision that does not care about critics and acclaims. Miller's dark and sinister imagination does not get changed in any way besides that it gains movement and life. It's the first time we see a comic book so perfectly and so purely transferred to the big screen unlike the recent rapisms of classic comic books like Spiderman and the Fantastic Four. One must be warned: most people are not going to like Sin City. And I can't blame them of course. It's brutal, raw, violent and sick. But that is what makes it what it is. Not "Robert Rodriguez's Sin City" or "Quentin Tarantino's Sin City", but a pure, authentic "Frank Miller's Sin City".