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 home. Crooked cops. Sexy dames. Desperate vigilantes. Some are seeking revenge. Others lust after redemption. And then there are those hoping for a little of both. A universe of unlikely and reluctant heroes still trying to do the right thing in a city that refuses to care. Their stories – shocking, suspenseful and searing – come to the fore in a new motion picture from co-directors Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez, and special guest director Quentin Tarantino.
The streets of Sin City run rife with blood, haunted by vengeance delegated by twisted forms of authority. Three stories intertwine; all full with brutal murder and shocking violence. Marv (Rourke) hunts down the killer of his own night lover Goldie, Dwight prepares to break the shaky truce in Old Town held together by corrupt cop Jackie Boy (Del Toro) and after being framed for the rape of Nancy Callahan, Hartigan (Willis) reeks revenge from Roark, the senator's son with a penchant for raping and flaying young girls.
Unless you have decided to live in a cupboard for the past six months, or just have no recollection of filmic gossip, you would know that Sin City is based upon Miller's successful cult comic of the same title. And to even say the film is ‘based' upon the comic would be an incredible understatement. The technical aspects of this film are phenomenal. The totally digital filmmaking style has given the directors room to design a world that is identical on screen as it was on page. The stories are told, in a more important way, through visual imagery (a lot of the death scenes are shown through purely black and white, a style scene in the books). Every scene is a vibrant map of black and white, shoved imminently onto celluloid, focusing on Miller's every scribble to create a patchwork quilt of angles and iconic images. Without these aspects of technology, Sin City would be a better-than-average film noir, with none of the neo-retro facets of what it has become.
So the words, ‘inspirational' and ‘genius' start to crop up, and this is before any trace of script and performance have been mentioned, and in all honesty, it only gets better. Taking a high dive from an up and down career, Rourke bounces back in an outstanding and true to fiction role as Marv, supported all the way to the electric chair by Wood as mute psychopath Kevin and Cardinal Roark (Rutger Hauer). Other key performances include Bruce Willis as the silent, strong detective Hartigan framed and sent to police confinement for seven years, and Benecio Del Toro in the shoes of corrupt cop Jackie Boy.
If you thought that Sin City would lack inspiration from its original text, it proves to be strong still with most of the lines falling straight from the character's captions. Some of the best dialogue in years can be heard from Marv's dry, smirking lips: “worth dying for, worth killing for, worth going to hell for”. Frank Miller retains some of his poetic combustion as it smooths the heavy yet creatively bloody violence.
It's going to take a while before audiences can accept Sin City 's rambunctious and perfectly blunt style, but when they do, everyone will enjoy its blackly humorous tone. It plays to the advantage of using Tarantino's name as a ‘special guest director' but it won't be long before audiences will realise that only Rodriguez could have the patience and pride to produce Miller's comic book onto the silver screen with an unusual attention to detail and dignity.
DVD Extras
Behind the scenes feature |