More Parody Than Pastiche

Rating: 8/10 (2 April 2005)

SIN CITY (4 outta 5 stars) Sin City is a very amusing film... a sampling of some of Frank Miller's Sin City comics some time ago never gave me an inkling that it was supposed to be *funny*. It always struck me as a slavish, fan-obsessed regurgitation of Mickey Spillane (with the gritty realism eschewed in favor of whatever bizarre costumes or weaponry Miller felt like drawing that day). The movie of Sin City seems to be more of a parody of those film noir clichés than a mere pastiche. It's funny... but without being overly silly. The movie is made up of three separate "stories" all of which follow the same essential pattern: big, brawny guys getting beaten up and repeatedly shot in order to protect a dame. The movie is very anti-PC... men are men and women are babes and the only real love can be between a man and a little girl. These subtexts that run through pretty much ALL of modern "tough guy" fiction are mercilessly trounced by the deliberately ham-fisted dialogue and overwrought situations that make up this film. It's the performances that really sell this concept though. Mickey Rourke in particularly makes the most outrageous pulp dialogue sound like poetry as it wafts from his rough-hewn voice-box. Clive Owen and Bruce Willis also add subtle dimensions to their own takes on the same character. Benicio Del Toro and Michael Clarke Duncan have some of the greatest villainous voices ever heard in film. (And it's particularly nice that Del Toro's character is still heard from even after his demise.) The women of "Sin City" are basically eye candy... but somehow Carla Gugino, Rosario Dawson, Alexis Bledel and even Jessica Alba are able to come across as more than just pin-up girls. Interesting direction by Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller and Quentin Tarantino (who did what? who knows?). I had doubts about the over-use of digital effects to beef up the action... but with a couple of exceptions (where the on screen action looked like bad video game graphics) the CGI worked pretty well.