Pros: GREAT story, memorable characters, great score, amazing directing and cinematography
Cons: Extended scenes of graphic violence and nudity
The Bottom Line: Simply put: it just may be the best movie of all time. If you're scared away by the violence and nudity, you don't know what you're missing.
There have been a fair share of comic book adaptations gracing the big screen as of late, some more successful than others. Simply put, none of them come close to Sin City, which may very soon be regarded as one of the best "detective" films of all time. Allow me to explain, starting from the top:
No movie is worth its weight in popcorn without a good story, and Sin City has three. The movie is broken into three vignettes, plus a prologue/epilogue sequence featuring Josh Hartnett as "The Salesman"--and he has quite a deal for the lovely women he comes across. The first vignette deals masterfully with Marv, a brutally disfigured man played by Mickey Rourke, who falls in love with a stripper and wakes up to find her dead next to him, with police dashing in from all angles. He's been framed, and for the next 35 minutes or so, we'll be going along with him to find out who's responsible. In the second vignette, we meet Shellie, played by Brittany Murphy. Shellie has a problem--a guy who thinks he's her boyfriend, and knows he's abusive. She's also got a solution--an ex-con named Dwight, played by likely James Bond successor Clive Owen. Dwight decides to take care of this bum for Shellie, but makes a serious mistake in doing so, and then has to work with the ladies of Old Town to rectify the situation. The final vignette, which is visited briefly after the prologue scene, is the best of all. John Hartigan, a detective betrayed by his own police force, has been let out of prison after eight years, and now he's seeking to protect the girl whose life he saved eight years ago (Jessica Alba) and get his revenge against those who put him there. As the vignettes pass, you begin to see elements of earlier ones in the one you're watching at the time. Some of these are obvious (Marv in a bar during Hartigan's story), but some are less so, and are more rewarding to find.
The sheer genius of the stories behind these vignettes can be summed up in two words: Frank Miller. Miller's graphic novels set in the fictional Sin City (it's really called "Basin City," but the sign is damaged) are the inspiration for the film's stories, and the original stories are not betrayed. Those faithful to the graphic novels will notice more self-narration by the characters than exists in the comics, but this is more a function of words being a secondary concern in comic strips.
And while we're talking about comic strips, the film itself is shot to look and feel like a comic strip. Everything about it from the lighting, to the very selective use of color, right down to the angles and shots used will make it seem as if you're watching a comic strip brought to life. The over-the-top staging of scenes, as well as the over-the-top violence, also comes across as if it were right out of one of Miller's graphic novels. The best comparison I can give as far as cinematography and directing are concerned is a cross between Pulp Fiction (and Tarantino actually was involved--to some extent--in the making of this film) and Dick Tracy. Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller himself do an excellent job as co-directors of the film. While I wouldn't care much for this style of directing in, say, an action epic, it works perfectly for the style of film it's adapted to.
Back to the key elements of film, we hit the actors. No story, no matter how good it is, can be made to work without good acting, and Sin City has no shortage of it. The cast is very much an ensemble, with no one character designed to stand out above the rest. In fact, most of the roles in the film are fairly small. While people will undoubtedly point to Bruce Willis as giving the best performance (and perhaps deservedly so), I point to the lesser-known actors. Mickey Rourke made Marv a memorable character, and by far my favorite in the entire story. Terminator 3 alumnus Nick Stahl makes his character(s) some of the most downright detestable in movie history, and he does it with a great performance (and some garish makeup later on)--not necessarily with a script designed to cater to him. Jessica Alba's Nancy Callahan will likely be the most remembered female character from the film, but my vote goes to Rosario Dawson's Gail. Gail is the leader of the prostitutes who run Old Town, and Dawson lends the kick-butt-and-take-names mentality to her quite well. There are also bit parts for Elijah Wood (as a killer with quite the appetite), Michael Clarke Duncan (as a mob boss), and even a cameo for Frank Miller himself (as a corrupt priest who ends up on the wrong side of Marv's gun). Watch the henchmen, though--they often get the best lines, and one during Dwight's vignette is the beneficiary of the most hilarious sequence in the film, as he realizes that he's been shot right through the chest with an arrow and is apparently in no pain, yet wonders aloud whether or not a doctor should be summoned.
No film is complete without a score, and the three-man composing crew of John Debney, Graham Revell, and director Robert Rodriguez do a fine job of putting one together. Full of memorable '40s and '50s-ish cues (as this is, above all, a '40s film that just happens to be set towards the modern day), it complements the film beautifully.
If there is one downside to the film, it would be the nature of it. In the theater, I saw lots of families with small children. Within 30 minutes, about a quarter of the theater had been emptied by families that had walked out. This movie is rated R for a reason, folks. The language isn't the reason, for once. There's lots of graphic violence, extended scenes of nude females (what do you expect when half the movie is set in a town run by strippers?), and did I mention LOTS of graphic violence?
If you can see past the violence and the nudity and watch the film itself, you'll be greatly rewarded with two hours of some of the finest and most original American filmmaking of the last 20 years. This movie probably won't win any Oscars because of controversy over the director (Rodriguez actually left the Director's Guild to give Frank Miller a co-director credit), but it deserves them. I contend that it just may be the best movie I've ever seen.
Welcome to Sin City. This town beckons to the tough, the corrupt, the brokenhearted. Some call it dark. Hard-boiled. Then there are those who call it ...More at HotMovieSale.com
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