Sin City Movie Review:


Blood, brawn and babes.

These are the three main factors in the world that is Frank Miller’s Sin City. Based on the long-running graphic novel series, the film version sculpts together three of the more popular stories of the mature-themed serial.

The film opens as we find John Hartigan (Bruce Willis), a detective on his last legs trying to save a young girl from a vicious sexual predator. Then the film begins to tell three self-contained stories of life in Sin City. The first stars Marv (Mickey Rourke), a brutish hard-boiled man who is framed for the murder of a lusty prostitute (Jamie King). The second finds Dwight (Clive Owen), having to protect Gail (Rosario Dawson) and her band of prostitutes when an influential figure (Benicio Del Toro) is slain in their sliver of Sin City. The third and final story returns us to Hartigan, who now has one last mission which will bring all the pieces of his story together and landing Hartigan face to face with the Yellow Bastard (Nick Stahl), himself.

The film’s detailed style of direction, temperature, voice and execution is deafening to the viewer. There is so much to look at in this film you seem to suffer from sensory-overload and then eventual boredom. Come on, you can only be pelted in the eyes with style for so long before you have to look away.

The film’s world is sort of a hodge-podge of gritty crime noir and blood-soaked barbarian conquest where women and sex are the final reward. The treatment of women and their place in this world is utterly preposterous it can only described as a juvenile delinquent’s wet dream. In some ways, I guess, that is what “pulp fiction” is.

If you look back at the evolution of the “pulp” story where you have testosterone laden figures like Robert E Howard’s Conan, Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan, Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer and of course cinematic serial hero, Flash Gordon. Their worlds were all vastly different but the hero was always portrayed as the same as he slew the bad guy and won the heart of the well-endowed female love interest.

“Sin City” in its purest form is this basically except the innocence, if you will, of pulp has been hi-jacked by the blood, gore and overt sexuality of our hardened world today. The best way to describe this new version is that its “pulp noir on crack cocaine”.

My favorite character in the entire piece is the tour-de-force performance from harden actor Mickey Rourke. He was born to play that character and we can see why because he is utterly brilliant. You can say that his prosthetic nose in this film was as lucky for him as the prosthetic nose was for Nicole Kidman in “The Hours”. I loved every moment that he was on screen.

I also really enjoyed Bruce Willis who seems to be a lot softer version of the typical male in this blood-soaked world. Willis seemed to be the only approachable character in the film.

Clive Owen is always brilliant and once more he proves it with his performance as Dwight. I did feel that his story in the film was the weakest of the bunch, however. I also never for a second bought Rosario Dawson as the prostitute queen.

Another main problem I had with the film and its three stories is that the script or story itself isn’t that powerful or ground-breaking. I guess this does go back to the tone of the “pulp” stories but because the film is so heavy on style you kind of wanted something with depth or meaning beneath. Then again maybe you didn’t.

I really wanted to enjoy “Sin City” but since it beat me into a “sensory-overloaded coma” I found myself wanting to return to normal life just for a breather.

It is an amazing film if you buy into the concept and get sucked into the film’s world instantaneously. If you stop to think for one second, the social commentary on-screen is mind blowing. If you stop for two seconds then you will know all about my coma. Mercy, mercy, I give up!!

So Says the Soothsayer



Dean Kish

Referred to as a translation rather than a film adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic comic books, Sin City is a brilliantly inventive piece of filmmaking from Robert Rodriguez.

Rodriguez has gone from making driven indie films (El Mariachi) to visually flavored family films (Spy Kids) to delivering his most balanced and challenging work with Sin City. If one has read or even glanced at one of Miller’s Sin City comics, his dark world and characters are precisely “translated” onto the screen by Rodriguez.

Rodriguez in fact left the DGA (Director’s Guild of America) to have Frank Miller aboard as his co-director to make sure that his homage and “translation” was perfect.

Sin City is a sinister, cruel, violent, but more than anything imaginative graphic comic series by Miller, who has also written a few Spider-Man and Batman comic series. In Sin City, which is actually known as Basin City, it seems like it is always night, all of the men are brutes, killers, or corrupt. The women are either prostitutes, who have their own brand of justice, or lesbians. It is a type of place that turns people bad, whether they intend to or not. The stories, like the film, are nearly all in black and white, except for a few splashes of color for blood, eyes, shoes, or of course the villainous Yellow Bastard (Nick Stahl).

Three of Miller’s Sin City comics are placed to make up Rodriguez’s two hour film. The first follows a big brute with a square face and an honest soul named Marv (Mickey Rourke). Like all of the stories in the film, Marv’s centers around love and revenge. After having the night of his life with a beautiful young woman named Goldie (Jamie King), Marv wakes up to find her dead in his bed and he being framed for the murder. Vowing to avenge her death, Marv wrecks havoc on the streets of Sin City uncovering a lot more than he expected including a showdown with a murderous farmboy named Kevin (Elijah Wood).

The second story follows the street smart Dwight (Clive Owen), who plans to avenge the harsh treatment of his new girlfriend (Brittany Murphy) by one of the city’s many corrupt cops, named Jackie Rafferty (Benicio Del Toro). Along with the help of the city’s “our territory-our law” prostitutes led by the vicious Gail (Rosario Dawson), Dwight unexpectedly assists in bringing about a war on the streets between three different sides.

The final story follows the aging and only honest cop in Sin City, John Hartigan. After saving a 11-year old girl named Nancy from a monstrous pedophile named Junior (Nick Stahl), Hartigan is regrettably sent to prison for eight years due to Junior’s Senator daddy (Powers Boothe). After being released, Hartigan realizes that Nancy’s (Jessica Alba) life is still in danger from Junior, who is now known as Yellow Bastard.

As are the visuals for the film, the writing is practically the same from Miller’s comics, which is one of the film’s minor problems. The characters all have an edge and the dialogue is pretty sharp, it is just the stories and actual plot points that may be hazy for audiences. Through the violence and the demoralization of the women characters in this film, Sin City actually has three different love stories at its core. The problem is the love theme is not prominent it is more in the background of Miller and Rodriguez’s script.

The visuals, style, and tone of Sin City are mesmerizing treats. It is almost like watching a classic film noir, with engulfing voiceovers set to the exact look of a comic book. This is an actual comic book film that is a live version of the comic. Through the use of digital technology and all green screen, Rodriguez precisely details the world of Sin City, not to mention added his own and guest director Quentin Tarantino’s violent tone as well as comedic timing. Tarantino in fact directs one scene in the film (the one with Owen and Del Toro in the car together). More than anything Rodriguez’s energy and flair give the creation by Frank Miller a needed boost and the film is never dull, just a lot of fun.

With a project this unique, a huge cast flocked to Rodriguez to get a piece of the action. Bruce Willis is suitable as the aging cop Hartigan and Nick Stahl is a disgusting menace as his enemy Yellow Bastard. Willis’ love interest in the film Nancy is played the stunning, but not to influential Jessica Alba. Clive Owen is solid as the street savvy Dwight and has interesting chemistry with his hardcore counterpart Gail, played Rosario Dawson. Owen’s rival of Jackie Boy is played amusingly by the always great Benicio Del Toro. There are also numerous cameos throughout the film including Josh Hartnett, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Frank Miller himself. However, there are two great performances in this film by two totally opposite actors that may be overlooked by many moviegoers. The first is by Mickey Rourke as Marv. Rourke is perfect as this humble, but aggressively vengeful giant. Rourke’s personal life has hurt him from getting characters of this nature. It was a risk that Rodriguez took with Rourke as Marv, and he does not disappoint in easily delivering his best performance to date. The other notable performance is by Elijah Wood, who plays a cannibalistic killing farmboy. Wood usually plays a character of good nature, but this one is far from it in his chilling and absolute sick portrayal as Kevin.

Sin City is unlike any film that has ever grace the film; it is not for everyone due to its violent nature and disturbing content, even though there are numerous funny moments. Some have compare the technology of green screen used by Rodriguez in this film to last year’s Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow. It is really incomparable; Sin City makes the digital use of Sky Captain nearly look elementary. In creating a precise and creative “translation” of Frank Miller’s Sin City, Robert Rodriguez has delivered a rare film that will be talked about for years to come.

Bailey Henderson

Robert Rodriguez takes another bracingly original approach with this adaptation of three of Miller's graphical novels. It looks absolutely amazing, but it remains an exercise in style over substance that never gets beneath our skin.

Marv (Rourke) is a tough guy who finds a moment of tenderness with a prostitute (King) whose sudden death sends him on a quest for vengeance against the politician's son (Stahl) who is killing women with the help of a silent sidekick (Wood). Relentless private eye Dwight (Owen) is helping the hookers who run Old Town get out of a tricky situation involving a greasy cop (Del Toro) and an opportunistic mobster (Duncan). And almost-retired cop Hartigan (Willis) tries over eight long years to protect a girl (Vega, then Alba) from the now-deformed politician's son, at any cost.

Yes, all three stories feature men protecting and violently avenging strong women. The film is jammed with outrageous action set pieces and tense dramatic standoffs. And there's real power in every scene; each actor goes for broke, blurting out lines exactly as they'd appear in a comic book--short, sharp blasts, with gravely running commentary that takes us into their heads and makes it feel like the noirest film noir ever.

Artistically, this is a triumph that should change the way comic books are adapted to film. Rodriguez and Miller use colours sparingly (Tarantino directs the moody car sequence with Owen and Del Toro). Much of the film is flatly black and white, silhouetted against the light and streaked with rain, snow, mud or blood. There are splashes of colour--red shoes, a blue car, a yellow villain, shimmering blood. But calling it blood-soaked is an understatement. At least the horrific brutality is done with an exaggerated sense of reality.

It's awash with wit and humour, and many sequences are mind-bogglingly well orchestrated. But you can't help but wonder why we're here. There's not much to the film beyond the visual feast and a sense of honour and humanity even in the dregs of this most corrupt of all cities. Is that reason enough to watch?

Rich Cline

Walk down the right back alley in Sin City and you can find anything. A wanted man would take on everyone to get revenge for the woman he loved. The whores of Old Town and an ex-con, who would face up to the mob and the police to keep themselves alive. A disgraced cop who would do anything to save the life of the only person that ever believed in him. Sin City has many a tale to tell and don’t expect them to be pretty.

Comic book movies might be all the rage at the moment but ‘Sin City’ is unlike any comic book movie you have ever seen.

Based on the graphic novels by the legendary writer/artist Frank Miller, ‘Sin City’ raises the bar when it comes to recreating the look and feel of the world the characters of the piece inhabit. The film is like watching a live action graphic, with the actors placed into the actual pages. The black and white visuals, with the odd injection of colour for dramatical effect, paints the streets and outskirts of Basin City with the same palette as the books that they are based upon. This gives the film a highly stylised look and one that truly captures the essence of the graphic novel.

Directors Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller and Quentin Tarantino have achieved this by utilising computer-generated graphics but for once the film is better for it. While it maybe becoming more and more common that actors are now performing against green screens instead of actual sets and locations but ‘Sin City’ sets a new standard in visuals. The movie just wouldn’t have looked right any other way as the directors vividly recreate the environments that made the novels so distinctive in the first place.

Having an amazing look to a film means nothing without having a story to tell and ‘Sin City’ has three of them. In the style of ‘Pulp Fiction’, three distinct stories with their own characters interweave with a common connection driving them all. Based on Miller’s graphic novels "The Hard Goodbye", "The Big Fat Kill" and "That Yellow Bast*rd", each of the stories are dark and extremely violent. ‘The Hard Goodbye’ deals with Marv, played brilliantly by Mickey Rourke, and quest for vengeance after the death of the only woman who was ever kind to him, Goldie (played by the beautiful Jaime King). This is probably the most violent of the three stories as Marv goes on a killing spree, working his way through body after body to find out who was behind Goldie’s murder. ‘The Big Fat Kill’ focuses on the war for control on Old Town. At the moment the Whores, lead by Gail, played by the extremely sexy Rosario Dawson, are independent of any mob or police control and deal out their own kind of justice but when Dwight (the excellent Clive Owen) brings Jackie Boy (a manic Benicio Del Toro) to town, all hell breaks loose and Old Town becomes a war zone. Finally we have ‘That Yellow Bast*rd’ that features disgraced police officer Hartigan (Bruce Willis in his best role for years) go up against the man who framed him and sent him to prison, as he tries to protect the girl he saved eight years earlier. The central character narrates each of these stories, as they outline their feeling and ideas as the story progresses. This really draws you into the character and their situation and again mimics the style of the graphic novels on which they are based.

Visually stunning, superbly acted by a star-studded cast and stories that draw you in from the start, ‘Sin City’ is one of the best adaptations to ever hit the silver screen. Directors Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller and Quentin Tarantino have to be congratulated for their sheer dedication to the material (which was probably not that hard for Frank Miller) and the way they approached the entire production. The movie is unique and astonishing to watch, as you would have never thought that a print medium could be so brilliantly recreated on film.

Jamie Kelwick

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