**** (out of ****)
Starring Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Benicio Del Toro, Jessica Alba, Josh Hartnett, Devon Aoki, Rosario Dawson, Brittany Murphy, Nick Stahl, Powers Boothe, Rutger Hauer, Carla Gugino, Michael Madsen, Elijah Wood, and Michael Clarke Duncan
Directed by Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller, and Quentin Tarantino & written by Frank Miller, from his graphic novel
2005
126 min R (so very, very R)
“Sin City” is a pure distillation of film noir cynicism. Democracy is corrupt, the law is corrupt, the church is corrupt. The human soul is definitely corrupt. God is real and he’s real indifferent. All men are hopeless savages, killers, and rapists, and all women are whores, madonnas, and chattel. The nonlinear, interlocking stories and presence of Bruce Willis in both films invite comparison of “Sin City” to “Pulp Fiction.” But while that film invites us to decode its timeline to find its message of second chances and redemption, “Sin City’s” maze of chronologies and massive piles of plotting only gives us the sense of an inescapable nightmare. In a twisted timewarp, David Lynch kind of way, the three main protagonists are like one man, trapped in a never-ending personal hell of dead ends and empty revenge. At one point, a character intones that (and I paraphrase) “in order to prove you’re worth a damn, sometimes you have to die, and sometimes you have to kill a lot of people.” Our three-in-one hero suffers both fates and looks set to keep doing so for all of eternity.
If “Sin City” had more than a shred of hope or any unquestionably “good” characters I would not rate it so highly. But the curtain is pulled away from what are often considered “good” deeds in so many movies and we see how hollow and venal movie morality can be. When the “heroes” of “Sin City” exact “just” revenge, “take the law into their own hands,” or give the villains “what they deserve,” they torture and mutilate their victims first. They delight in the noise, violence, and clamor of battle. Their mouths are wide with delight as they mow down their enemies without a glimmer of pity. The indifferent faces of killers are splattered with blood spurting from places not approved by the Marquis of Queensbury.
Is “Sin City” immoral? (There is little doubt in my mind that the next mindless killing perpetrated in some small town will be somehow by someone connected to the movie.) Consider how the prophet Isaiah (if I remember correctly) says the Lord does not delight in the deaths of the wicked. Consider how much satisfaction we take in watching the bad guys “get what’s coming to them” in most movies. And consider how the sordidness and soul-crushing depravity with which the heavies in “Sin City” are dispatched robs all the but the sickest among us of any sense of satisfaction. If you’re bothered by how quickly some characters are killed off, before we get to know them, re-read the first paragraphs of this review. As for gore, “Sin City” matches or surpasses the Julie Taymor “Titus” in quality and definitely overshadows it in quantity.
Oh, I’m sorry, I’ve made “Sin City” sound like a depressing slog through a pit of despair. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you’ve seen the previews, you already have an idea what a feast it is for the eyes. Live actors have been digitally grafted into a bleak and hyper-stylized comic book landscape of utter urban squalor, of massive shadows, dripping pipes, and wet streets. No one jumps from a second-story window when he can jump from seven stories. No ceiling is high enough and every woman’s clothes are optional. “Peter Gunn” baritone guitars drill away when things get hot. All but the most crucial (or random) colors have been drained: the green of a woman’s eyes, the crimson of a hooker’s lips, the red of so much spilled blood. This a movie pumping with excitement, driven by the broken, hollow romanticism that its heroes love to hate and hate to love.
The look is a result of a technology not unlike that used in “Tron,” “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow,” and “Star Wars Episode II,” but director Robert Rodriguez (“Once Upon a Time in Mexico”) has invigorated “Sin City” beyond its technology. He barrels through double-crosses and murders. He zooms his camera into all kinds of crazy places as hero-crooks blast it out with dirty cops in back alleys, sewers, and tar pits. He gives us toilet POVs as snitches and thugs are shoved face-first into the water until they talk. Frank Miller, the creator of the “Sin City” graphic novels, is credited as the film’s co-director. As near as I can figure—based on a “Charlie Rose” interview with Clive Owen that I half-watched—Rodriguez has exactly followed Miller’s comic as his storyboard. (The final, completely faithful product is rumored to be released unedited on a two DVD set. But don’t let that scare you; the theatrical release is a complete idea and the big screen is the way to see it.) Rodriguez’s soul brother and UT alum, Quentin Tarantino of “Kill Bill” and, yes, “Pulp Fiction,” shows up to direct one scene, in which a dead body comes back to life long enough to harangue its killer.
Plot? “Sin City” has mountains and mountains of twists and turns, and none of them really matter. Every line of dialogue and word of the enormous amount of narration is a cliché. And even if it isn’t a cliché, it sounds like one. We follow three men on the edge. Marv (Mickey Rourke, under so much makeup that he looks like Hellboy without the horns) is a seven-foot mountain of muscles and scars, a parolee who wakes up next to a dead hooker. (Does he wake up next to her in the morning? It’s never morning in Sin City.) He loves her and, framed as he is, he’s not leaving town until he’s delivered bone-crushing retribution to her killers. He takes bullet after bullet, gets run over multiple times, and drives various and sundry vehicles into flaming ends. He walks it off.
Page two of "Sin City." Back to home.