Sin City

Sin City

Also reviewed by:
Noah K.

This film screams 'cult'. It will end up being the film that makes a bunch of drooling teenage males want to make films as cool as this one, much like the effect Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction had on me when I was a pup (that they were R-rated certainly helped with the cool factor back then). Uncompromisingly violent and probably also quite sexist (the term "male gaze" may as well have been invented for Miller's depiction of women) the film nevertheless enchants with its stylistic intents and characters that are somehow refreshingly simple and stereotyped and –

Actually before I go any further, I have to put this in:

DISCLAIMER:
The version of this film that I viewed was a DDVD (dodgy DVD), Asian in its origin, and probably filmed on a tripod in an average-looking cinema by a dude who possibly slept whilst the film was on (I think I heard snoring).

This film will certainly be much, much prettier and more involving in the cinema (or non DDVD) without the compromise of visual and sound - so why did I choose to watch it this way?

Well, the absolute morons in charge (damn 'suits', working for the damn 'man', I tells ya!) have selected to ignore that in today's technomological climate you can download a new film merely hours after its premiere and routinely participate in on-line discussions about films on a global scale. Pretending this 'Internet thing' doesn't exist, they have puzzlingly decided to not release the film in Australia for about 6 months after the American release. This technique is usually only employed today when a studio knows they have a turkey on their hands and tries and make other countries forget about all the bad publicity it garnered in the States – yet Sin City was successful and resolutely so. Two sequels are already signed off on. So watching this on an illegal format was my little "fuck you" to the man and his cronies (oh, they'll rue the day they messed with this reviewer) - although for legal reasons I should point out I neither downloaded this myself or copied it in anyway. In fact, I borrowed it from my local video store, so I'm possibly as much a victim as the filmmakers since I too was scammed out of my hard-earned money by an inferior product (still, damn 'the man', right!)

Anyways, enough of the politics. Back to the film.

You know the disappointment you feel when seeing a film adaptation of a book you just adore? They stuffed this or that big scene, blah blah blah, the lead character is a lot more effeminate than you imagined, blah blah blah, and who the hell is that love interest that wasn't in the book??? Well it will come quite a relief for the many fans of Frank Miller's modern classic series of bloody noir that what you see in the books is what you get on the screen. Almost exactly.

In fact if you've read the comics - err - graphic novels, you understand why Miller has been credited as being a co-director. The film essentially follows the books frame for frame. It is a strange sensation watching a film like this and feeling that you have already seen it - I guess that's a testament to what Rodriguez was trying to accomplish. The maverick filmmaker injects a lot of gray into Miller's beautiful black and white images, but it works, and otherwise he is slavishly loyal to the books, sometimes detrimentally so.

If the promotional material for this film hasn't given it away then let me be the one to tell you that this is a boy's film. The men of Sin City are the ones who narrate their stories (personally I enjoyed the narration, but it is relentless, and will grate with some people, however necessary) and they are a motley bunch.

This is a film where the men are scarred and with a warped sense of morality that disagrees with the very fibre of a place like Sin City. It is a film about these men and about the dames they would kill for, and die for. Men so masculine they can take ten bullets, be hit by a car, suffer heart attacks, and still stand back up and kick some ass, all to defend the name, honor, or life of a dame that you know he isn't going to have a happy ending with in a place like this.

So here you have the main characters of the film's three stories:

  • "That Yellow Bastard" - the old gruff cop who is framed and jailed trying to save a little girl from a paedophile son of the city's mayor
  • "The Hard Good-Bye" - the hideous hulk of a thug who bashes and shoots his way to the killer of a hooker he shared but a single night with
  • "The Big Fat Kill" - a mysterious man with a new identity who risks it all to help protect the streets, and the hookers who work them, from a corrupt cop and his gang, then has to deal with the bloody aftermath.

Bruce Willis as the gruff cop proves again he can be excellent when he has a director that gives him something challenging or interesting to work with, and his story is a grim tale of the city's one good cop losing everything for his principles and for the little girl he tries to save. He isn't obviously excellent here, but has a quiet pathetic and subdued quality that undercuts his macho Die Hard image.

It is Micky Rourke, surprisingly, that impresses the most as Marv, the brute with the broken heart. Whilst jokes can be made about how much make-up he actually would have had to wear considering his face is already a disfigured mess thanks to years of drug binges, a short-lived boxing career, and plastic surgery that should be on posters deterring people from the procedure, he still looks a completely different person (well, more of a thing) here - probably for the best since people who can actually remember his plane wreck of a career would scarcely remember it fondly.

Rodriguez has borrowed his buddy Tarantino's trick and resurrected the career of an old and faded star, but let that not take anything away from Rourke who pushes through the make-up and delivers the best character and performance in the film. The skulls he crunches seeking bloody revenge for what he interprets as the closest thing to love he has ever experienced, courtesy of a hooker that was just using him for protection, is both sad and touching and adds much needed heart to what was in danger of being such an aesthetically awesome but superficial flick. If only his story didn't feel so rushed.

Clive Owen as the man with the new identity is fine, but never really gets anything too much to work with (actually his character even being alive here is but a payoff to another story that wasn't filmed for this installment). Although featuring the best of the crazy violence in the film, (hey, everyone loves a good decapitation) the story lacks the classic noir feeling of the others, and suffers for it, ending in a most unsatisfying mess. And yes, that's a critique for both the book and the film.

What also doesn't quite work is where the film cuts between Miller's stories to try and create a Pulp Fiction type scenario, however apart from one scene where the main characters of the different stories all intersect at a bar, it seems forced and one thinks these stories will be much better when viewed as short films in their own right (which apparently is the plan for a DVD release somewhere down the line).

The supporting cast have some of Miller's more interesting characters to play with, and play they do. Elijah Wood as the silent assassin Kevin is creepier than you can imagine him ever being (no hobbit-hugging here) and Benencio Del Toro steals every scene he is in as corrupt cop Jackie-Boy while Nick Stahl gets a bonus point for playing someone so grossly disfigured I'm surprised he wasn't entirely CG. Powers Boothe, Rutger Hauer, Michael Clarke Duncan, Michael Madsen and Josh Hartnett round out the men-folk with what are essentially cameos that were just filled by big names because, well because they could be I suppose, but they do draw some unnecessary attention away from the action.

While as pretty to look at as the distinctive CG backdrops, it is the women of Sin City who disappoint. Jessica Alba brings some innocence to Nancy that reminds us of the little girl we saw saved at the start of the story (innocence that probably would not have transferred to the screen if she was naked 95% of the time, as she is in the books), but lacks any sass and grit which makes her seem out of place in Sin City (and certainly as a stripper). Carla Gugino is so hot and naked that she makes me feel dirty for watching Spy Kids, but gets let down with much of her character being chopped out. Jaimie King's dual role really could have been played by any hot blonde, while Brittany Murphy doesn't quite seem to get it and probably wondered why everyone was acting all strange when they didn't just turn up to work playing a variation of every other role we've ever seen them in.

Of course these criticisms are largely pointless, as they don't get a hell of a lot to work with. The women of Sin City aren't exactly the sexy and slyly deceptive femme fatales of old classic noir. These waitresses, strippers and hookers own the streets with their weapons – here more literal than metaphorically sexual - a reaction to the subservient damsel in distress cliché perhaps, but naked girls with big guns is still not exactly a strong statement of female empowerment. Rosario Dawson gets the biggest female role as lethal hooker Gail, but does little except orgasm when watching people get killed or doing the killing herself. The silent Miho stands out among a film of cool, cult characters with her amazingly delicate and artful samurai skills and killing prowess but even she cannot hide that the women of Sin City just exist to reinforce that it is a man's city (and man's film) and while the women really do little more than cause trouble for the film's male anti-heroes we are perhaps to understand that it is but their place in a place like Sin City, rather than an indictment of Miller or Rodriguez.

"Special Guest Director" Quentin Tarantino (damn Rodriguez must just loves sending these "fuck you"s to the DGA and its ilk with his 'non-federation' made-up credits) makes his scene stand out, but his inclusion here just adds one novelty too many for a film already destined for cult worship. Although not necessarily a great film, Sin City is definitely a 'cool film', and as an exercise in style and originality it delivers, and entertains greatly in doing so.

Like many other films I enjoy, that I will never put in any pretentious 'Top Ten Cinematic Greats!' category, Sin City is a film whose flaws I will forgive and accept, and possibly even come to enjoy, as it will no doubt get more than a few spins in my DVD player down the line.

(the non dodgy variety, of course, assuming that 'the man' decides to release it here at all, damn him to hell.)