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All-singing, all-dancing librarian at your service!
Member since:28.03.2001
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Sin City is just that. A city of sin. Most of the police are corrupt and those that aren't have a low life expectancy. Mercenaries come here, knowing there's bound to be someone who'll give them a job. Politicians run the mob. The clergy commit outrageous acts and get away with it. A portion of the town is run with an iron first by the prostitutes, each of whom is an expert with one or more weapons. Truly good people are thin on the ground.
It's a fascinating place. If you have a strong stomach it's well worth checking out.
Sin City the film is based on a number of graphic novels by Frank Miller, one of the comic book world's deities, ranking probably a little lower than Jack Kirby and Alan Moore. The comic books, graphic novels, books (call them what you like), have a distinctive visual style as well as a bleak outlook with a blackly humorous twist. Director Robert Rodriguez worked closely with Miller (plus a little bit of help from Quentin Tarantino) to replicate the look and feel of Sin City from the page to the big screen and the results are stunning.
Innovative effects techniques have been used so that the characters walk through environments as drawn by Miller himself, and although much of the film is in black and white, there are splashes of colour. A red dress. Women's eyes. Blood. A blue car. A man with bright yellow skin. The scarcity of colour makes it that much more important and eye-catching whenever it does creep in, and the preponderance of black and white imagery seems to intensify the actors' performances and also distances the viewer from the violence in some ways. And boy, is there a lot of violence. As the blood is sometimes black, sometimes red, sometimes white and once even yellow, it seems less real - some of the unpleasantness becomes somehow funny in the way that Itchy and Scratchy or Kenny's grisly ends in South
Park are funny.
The film is both real and unreal at the same time. Sometimes it is obvious that the backgrounds are drawn rather than physically present, but it always feels as though the characters belong in their environment. This has to be the best use of blue/green screen technology that I've ever seen, as the actors and their virtual set blend seamlessly to create a unique look.
But good effects do not make a good film. What's the plot?
Technically, the film doesn't really have a linear plot. After a brief pre-credits vignette that sets the style and mood, the film follows three stories, separate but subtly interlinked with certain supporting characters crossing over between them. Each takes an unlikely hero and follows them on a personal crusade of some kind, which inevitably leads to deception and death along the way. At least one of the characters doesn't survive their story, but each in some way achieves at least some of what they set out to do. Almost-retired cop is desperate to protect a kidnapping victim and goes to extraordinary lengths to keep her safe, sacrificing his reputation and more. Marv is framed for the death of a prostitute, and because she had shown him kindness, he is determined to get to the bottom of a huge conspiracy to bring the people responsible to justice - which in his eyes means a long, painful death. And Dwight follows a man that he believes may be about to kill a girl and because of one misheard word, he gets himself and an old flame into an awful lot of hot water - he feels it is his responsibility to make things right. Then the film is brought full circle when a character from one of these stories meets one of the two from the pre-credits scene. The camera fades to black, leaving us as the audience to fill in the blanks about the likely outcome.
The cast list for the film is impressive, combining established talents with newer actors who are almost certainly headed for the Hollywood A-list. The big roles are taken by Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, Rosario Dawson and Jessica Alba, an impressive list. But we also get Elijah Wood in an extraordinarily creepy performance and some 'hot' names such as Brittany Murphy, Josh Hartnett and Benicio Del Toro. There is not a single weak link in the cast, as everyone, no matter how big or small their role, puts their all into it and is utterly convincing. There are times when cliché deliberately takes over the plot for a moment, but the actors deadpan these lines (e.g. 'She was my sister. My twin sister!') so that these moments are an acceptable part of the world of Sin City. Bruce Willis and Elijah Wood are the stand-out performances for me, but I suspect that everyone would feel differently about it, depending on how they respond to the characters.
Earlier I mentioned the violence. I wasn't joking about the strong stomach. There's a lot of it.
Guns. Knives. Grenades. A saw. A very hungry dog. Sharp teeth and nails. Rope. Razor wire. The characters find lots of ways to hurt, maim and kill one another and there is a lot of blood, in a whole variety of colours. Toilet bowls prove to be effective means of intimidation in two different segments of the film and the variety of body parts that become detached from their owners is quite astonishing. Men be warned, private parts are fair game and there is one moment that will make any man blanch and turn away, though thank heavens for the innovative colour scheme. In the flesh (as it were) and it would be too much. And you really don't want me to tell you what happens to Elijah Wood's character.
Oddly, I normally dislike violent films intensely. It must be the style and the colour scheme that allows me to enjoy this one and even to find some of it amusing. There are times when the messy fates of the characters verge on (and in one or two cases actually become) slapstick, becoming fairly ludicrous. At other times (when bad things happen to a character we like), it becomes deeply affecting, although one protagonist's end is almost undeniably amusing and made me laugh out loud. If you'd told me that I'd laugh at this film, I really, really wouldn't have believed you.
Something I always pay attention to in the film is the soundtrack, and this film has a very good one indeed. The music is by director Robert Rodriguez, plus John Debney and Graeme Revell, names that are completely unfamiliar to me. The score they have written is a strangely beautiful affair, perfectly in keeping with the noirish feel of the film and yet also not at all what I had expected. These days, you tend to get a lot of rocky songs by popular artists, but the film avoids that entirely (although there are two songs credited, they are not distractions) opting for something more haunting and elusive. The music played over the final credits is particularly beautiful. Not something I would listen to regularly, but it is absolutely the right thing for the film.
And finally, before I wrap this review up, a word about the DVD itself. It's an uncomplicated release with the only extra being a brief documentary called 'Behind the Scenes of Sin City'. This is only barely worth watching, as it's mainly a promotional sort of thing, with everyone saying how great the film is and how great everyone else involved is. It's all true, but if you've watched the film, you already know that. It does give you a glimpse of some of the scenes being filmed, though, and each glimpse is fascinating, and make me long for an exploration of how they went about all of the green screen filming. Sadly, this is not forthcoming, but you can't have everything. One definite bonus is that the DVD includes an audio description track for the visually impaired. I haven't had the courage to listen to it, though - I find the audio descriptions of Little Britain hard to take when I watch that series with a blind friend, so I suspect that the audio description of Sin City would make me feel queasy.
This is a film that I highly recommend. It would be worth watching just for its innovative style, but everything is carried off so well by both the technical people and the cast that it becomes something very special indeed. It's not pleasant, but it is remarkable.
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Expect to pay between 12 and 15 pounds for this online, and more in high street stores. Amazon also has a special box set available which includes the three graphic novels that inspired the film. It's not cheap (neither the simple DVD nor the box set), but it's worth it!
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
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Excellent review. I didn't think this was a brilliant film as it was a bit hard to swallow visually, but your review would certainly convince me to watch it had I not seen it.
Brutal and breathtaking,Sin Cityis Robert Rodriguez's stunningly realized vision of Frank ... more
Miller's pulpy comic books. In the first of three separate but loosely related stories, Marv (Mickey Rourke in heavy makeup) tries to track down the killers of a ...
Postage & Packaging: £1.21 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Brutal and breathtaking,Sin Cityis Robert Rodriguez's stunningly realized vision of Frank ... more
Miller's pulpy comic books. In the first of three separate but loosely related stories, Marv (Mickey Rourke in heavy makeup) tries to track down the killers of a ...
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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 dame...
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![Sin City [DVD] [2005]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78502154.jpg "Sin City [DVD] [2005]")
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