"SIN"fully good! Makes "PULP FICTION" look like "BEACH BLANKET BINGO" - one of '05's best films!

Rating: 10/10 (4 April 2005)

SIN CITY (2005) **** Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson, Benicio Del Toro, Nick Stahl, Powers Boothe, Elijah Wood, Carla Gugino, Rutger Hauer, Jaime King, Devon Aoki, Brittany Murphy, Michael Clarke Duncan, Alexis Bledel, Josh Hartnett, Michael Madsen, Marley Shelton, Jude Ciccollella, Nicky Katt, Makenzie Vega. (Dirs: Frank Miller & Robert Rodriguez; "Special Guest Director" : Quentin Tarantino)
"Sin"fully Good  Makes PULP FICTION look like BEACH BLANKET BINGO; the year's best film (thus far)
Fanboys and novices alike (myself included on the latter classification) will be hard-pressed to be disenchanted with the mega-violent, pulse-pounding, adrenalized realization/adaptation of Frank Miller's cult-classic neo-noir 'graphic novels' of SIN CITY thanks to the visionary genius of Robert Rodriguez for 'getting it'  actually making a film INTO a comic book; arguably the best of its kind and thus far in this anemic cinematic year the best film of 2005.
Miller, who rose to acclaim in the late 80s early 90s with iconoclastic debunking of such cherished comic book superheroes Batman, Daredevil and Spider-Man, has a hardcore fan base who cherish the stark graven images of black and white in his SIN CITY books of depraved justice and injustices alike with anti-heroes newly forged with pitch-black souls beating hearts of gold and soft spots for dames in distress not the likes seen since the hey-day of Chandler and Spillaine with a unique look and no-holds-bar approach to the proceedings at hand.
Wisely Rodriguez enlisted Miller to be a co-director (even if it meant quitting membership to the DGA when he was told Miller couldn't since he wasn't a member ; a ballsy solidarity pact if you ask me) in interpreting the amazing art work to the silver screen by employing literally copying panel-by-panel/frame-for-frame re-creations of the artist's trademark visuals that are etched amazingly on the big screen. Shot in dazzling black and white that glistens and glimmers while splotched with shades of color here and there to underscore the emotions that may be lost in translation, and largely improvised with state-of-the art digital/computer generated effects (practically every background, set piece et al is green-screened ala "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" but with a better budget and a more seasoned filmmaker that makes all the world of difference).
The film is interlinked with three story lines from Miller's work in the dank dwellings of Basin City (the first two letters scratched out on its borderline welcoming sign giving the title of what it really is) that includes world-weary cop Hartigan (Willis; who else does noble rot so well and with echoes of Bogart to boot?!), who on the eve of his retirement and faced with a recently diagnosed bad ticker, is out to settle the score for a serial pederast in the sickly form of a politico's son (Stahl cannily channeling Peter Lorre) who kidnaps young girls to do unspeakable things to; a shady cat named Dwight (Owen, whose rugged good-looks are on fine display) hell-bent on keeping the peace between his lady, Gail (the deliciously devilish Dawson), the leader of a gang of hookers and the crooked police when bad blood is shed involving a brutal cop Jackie Boy (a barely distinguishable Del Toro having a field day at being a bastard echoing Robert Mitchum in all his squinty-eyed deluge); and sandwiched in between is the best chapter involving a borderline psychotic pugilist with a mug like an anvil meets The Elephant Man, named Marv (Rourke, in a Travolta-comeback plug, arguably the best performance of the film and one of the actor's greatest on screen characters) who wakes up in bed to find the goddess/whore Goldie (the insatiably gorgeous King) dead by the hands of another only being framed by a truly vile menace which leads to an unstoppable pledge on vengeance with one of the most violent on screen vendettas ever committed to celluloid. Rourke, buried under tons of truly incredible make-up, emotes like no tomorrow giving his hulking thug a sliver of humanity even as he's beating the hell out of all who come within his murderous rage-induced journey into hell.
Included are scenes of aforementioned bloodshed of impaling, garroting, cannibalism, decapitations, disembowelments, amputations, shootings, stabbings, and two- count'em  two castrations (to one character!) Be that as it may it is all pertinent to its comic book trappings and underscores the themes of personal justices over the odds often with the do-gooders attempts not exactly coming up roses. Perhaps its nihilism is at an all-time low but in the balance of the grim story lines its only par for the course.
Also on hand are the sexy Alba as the grown-up would-be victim of Stahl's lethal sex predator that Willis' Hartigan is re-united with, Gugino as the lush lesbian parole officer to the grotesque Marv, a spooky silent turn by Wood as Marv's nemesis, Duncan as a thuggishly crooked police enforcer, Hartnett as a silky-smooth hit-man, the stealth-like assassin Aroki, a crusty Booth as the corrupt politician Rourk, a Rod Stieger look-alike turn by Hauer as an unrepentant cardinal and for my money the funniest cameo by Katt as one of Duncan's hench-man who has the most hilarious commentary about a well-placed archery shot.
Rodriguez, who co-wrote & co-directed with Miller (and let buddy QT do one gallows-humor sequence with Owen & Del Toro), also is credited with the superlative cinematography, co-produced, co-scored and edited the film, is a one-man unstoppable maverick of film-making who only seems to be getting better and better with each endeavor and clearly this is his masterpiece in this bloody valentine to noir and graphic novels.
"Sin City" makes "Pulp Fiction" look like "Beach Blanket Bingo"; one of the year's best films and instant classic in the making.