While the genre has existed off and on since the 1980s, “Sin City” is the best comic book adaptation movie to come out in the past two decades. It may even surpass the best of the genre, including Tim Burton’s “Batman.”
The film is fun, harsh, thrilling, disturbing, slick and cool – everything that differentiates comic books and graphic novels from other forms of literature. Based on the graphic novels by Frank Miller, “Sin City” is a collection of stories set in the fictional dilapidating metropolis of Basin City, where crooks, thieves, prostitutes and scoundrels infest the streets. It is the darkest of film noir places. Villains and heroes are inseparable and morality is turned completely on its head.
The principal champions in this city are not mighty superheroes with pristine records, but the dregs of humanity who live by the harsh rules of the dirty streets. There are few innocents at all in the film, yet these people are the ones in the gravest danger. Robert Rodriguez directs the film in stark black and white with a few objects in different colors (red dress, blue car, silver blood, yellow skinned man), keeping very much to the style of the original graphic novels.
In essence, he has transposed over the frames from these novels into the movie, setting still images into motion. For this, Frank Miller was given directorial credit even while Rodriguez held the reigns with a little help from “special guest director” Quentin Tarantino.
There are three principal stories in the film. The first follows good cop Hartigan (Bruce Willis) as he tries to save the life of a little girl caught by a serial kidnapper/pedophile.
The second follows Marv (Mickey Rourke), an ugly beast of a man, who seeks vengeance on the person who killed his prostitute lover. The third story follows Dwight (Clive Owen) who hurries to protect prostitutes from the fury of a drunken, crooked cop (Benicio Del Toro), eventually leading the entire red light district closer to an all-out war with the police.
The film ends with an epilogue of Hartigan searching for the little girl he saved eight years later when she is a young woman (Jessica Alba). The obvious theme of the film is vengeance and chivalric morals as men attempt to protect women. While this is evident in all three segments, there are plenty of powerful women in the film, particularly Gail (Rosario Dawson), Goldie (Jaime King) and even Miho (Devon Aoki), each a prostitute and a vicious killer of men gone wrong.
The ultimate theme is inverted corruption and the people at the bottom rising up both physically and morally against a system that is set against them. This is a collection of underdog stories, but it is surprising to actually root for these people given the usual social norms. While all three stories are intriguing, the sequence with Marv is the best. Rourke outshines a slew of bigger-name actors as the toughened thug. With constant voice-over, we get into Marv’s head and his motivations and see this man as more human than monster. Without the voice-over he would be a mere thug – pathetic and despicable. It is an odd turn of events, but deftly handled by the cast and director.
Elijah Wood adds to the mix as the creepy killer/cannibal Kevin. If nothing else, “Sin City” is a star-studded vehicle of stylized violence. There are big name actors and actresses involved with this project, and almost all of them give superb performances. While the dialogue is a bit corny at times, there is enough eye candy as well as decapitated heads to at least keep a person entertained. But these stories are more than just pretty vignettes; they are well-written, beautiful yarns of the best and worst in people.
Robert Rodriguez might try to hard to be like Tarantino at times, but he has put something together that has more dignity and stylized cool than either of the “Kill Bills,” and with even more violence, if that were possible.
Jason Bolte can be reached at [email protected].
