Good and gory

Rating: 8/10 (4 April 2005)

With a cast that rivals a Robert Altman film, Robert Rodriguez's latest film "Sin City" is, quite simply, Frank Miller's stories of the same name come to life. There are three main story arcs that intertwine in small ways: Marv (Rourke) a street tough with a rough looking mug goes to bed one night with a prostitute named Goldie (Jaime King) and wakes up with her lying dead next to him. When the police show up at his door a moment later, he knows he's been set up and he sets out to find the killer out of respect for her. In the second story, Dwight (Owen) finds out that Jackie Boy, (del Toro) the ex-boyfriend of his current girlfriend Shellie (Murphy) is not only an abusive jerk, but he is about to go wreak havoc on "Old Town", the red-light district of the city where the prostitutes (and his former girlfriend Gail, played by Rosario Dawson) hold court. In an attempt to protect Gail and the others, Dwight finds himself in a really bad situation that could cause a street war to break out, and put the lives of Gail and her girls in great danger. Finally, there is Hartigan (Willis) a retiring cop whose last case is to track down a pedophile, Rourk Jr. (Stahl) who has kidnapped a young girl. Hartigan tracks him down and administers justice, but Rourk's father is a corrupt Senator, and has Hartigan thrown in jail. Ten years later he finds out that Rourk Jr. is up to his old tricks and that his target is the same girl, Nancy (Jessica Alba), now grown up and an exotic dancer with a heart of gold who has been pining after Hartigan since her rescue. Hartigan must now save Nancy again and stop Rourk Jr. from exacting revenge.
There are a lot of characters in "Sin City", and for the most part, the stories are fulfilling. I thought the first two were the best, but the Hartigan segment was not very compelling, though it was by no means terrible. There were some fantastic characters (I particularly loved Kevin, Elijah Wood's character, but it was such a bizarre and shocking character reveal that I didn't want to go into it in the summary because it's too fantastic experienced first hand.) The real story about "Sin City" is obviously its cinematography and appearance. Much has been made about the "comic book come to life" look of the film, but it really is true. As a former comic book fanatic, (though I have not yet read the Sin City series) I was delighted with the presentation. Blood spurts white as well as red against the stark black and white film, blue and green eyes glow from black and white faces, and the eyes of one of the most evil people in the film are obscured by the ominous glare on his eyeglasses. "Sin City" is a comic book lover/comic book film geek wet dream, put simply.
This is actually a really difficult review to write, personally because I had to ascertain my feelings about the film without a prejudice I have toward a certain kind of violence. For no clear reason I have a big problem with decapitations and hangings, and unfortunately "Sin City" is rife with them. There were times when there were three or four minute scenes when I couldn't look at the screen. But if you don't have a problem with that specifically, you're in businessas long as you don't mind violence, and a great deal of it. I went to the film with six other people and four of them (all Kill Bill fans, mind you) were turned off by the excessive violence, though one of them didn't let that diminish his view of the film. Other than the head thing I was fine, but there was a great deal of slicing, dicing, some cannibalism, even castrations (yes, in the plural sense). Obviously, it is all done in a very cartoonish manner (particularly the scene between del Toro and Owen having a conversation in a car, the scene that Tarantino directed), and even some very violent moments were silhouetted, but the violence is pervasive enough to give me pause about recommending it to say, my parents.
I find myself nearly salivating when I think of how cool the film looked, and if it weren't for certain elements I would certainly want to go see it again; it's kind of like being drawn to shiny things. Though I traditionally am a celluloid purist (I had issues even going to see "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow"), Rodriguez, probably one of the more schizophrenic directors we have working today (this is a far cry from Spy Kids, to say the least) really created something groundbreaking with "Sin City", and his vision and success with this medium really make me eagerly anticipate more. Without any prejudice, this film gets 8/10.
--Shelly