Sin City DVD > Reviews > There's Wrong and There's Wrong, and There is This

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Loved it
Story	Outstanding
Characters / Performances	Outstanding
Special Effects	Outstanding
Soundtrack	Good

Advantages:	Fantastic looking, great plot, intersting characters
Disadvantages:	ultra - violence may put off some

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

With its glossy comic-book appearance, ultra-violence and fast paced action, Sin City is a a modern classic, and certainly one of the best neo-noir films ever. Robert Rodriguez not so much adapts from Frank Miller's comic books of the same name, as directly transfer them to the big screen. A transition made with ease and one that works incredibly well.

Sin City is set in Basin City, a gritty place with a dark underbelly of violence, police corruption and murder and is based on four of Frank Miller's comic book stories, those being; 'That Yellow Bastard', 'The Big Fat Kill', 'The Customer is always Right' and 'The Long Hard Goodbye'.

' That Yellow Bastard' begins eight years before any of the other Sin City stories. The story centres around the 3 main characters of Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba), Detective John Hartigan (Bruce Willis) and Senator Roark's son. Protected by his Senator father Roark Junior is a paedohpile who gets away with raping and killing young girls for sexual pleasure. However this all changes come Hartigan's last day before retirement, when he decides in order to bow out in one last glory and goes against his corrupt partner Bob (Michael Madsen) and attempts to stop Roark Junior. Hartigan consequently rescues an 11 year old Nancy from Roark before shooting him in the hand and penis aka 'taking away his weapons'. It is here that Hartigan is shot in the back by his partner Bob and consequenlty put in a coma. We are reunited with Hartigan waking from his coma in the hospital, where he is faced by Seantor Roark who, via some heavy handed tactics, forces Hartigan to confess to the rape of Nancy Callahan for which he spends the next eight years in jail. This jumps the story forward to the 'present day'. On his release from prison Hartigan is reunited with Nancy again, now a 19 year old erotic dancer in Kadie's Bar, and tries to warn her of the apparent dangers of the corrupt high-society. However his warnings are too late and both are thrown into danger when a new character known as the Yellow Bastard attempts to kill them both. The Yellow Bastard was in fact Roark Junior now fully reconstructed with his father's money, given in desperate hope that he may produce a grandson, seeks revenge against Hartigan and takes it by first attempting to kill Hartigan and capturing Nancy. Roark Junior takes Nancy to a remote house and plans to rape her again, however in dramatic irony Hartigan appears on the scene and violently kills the Yellow Bastard before this can happen. The Story ends with Hartigan killing himself to protect Nancy 'An old man dies so a young girl can live...fair trade'.

'The Big Fat Kill' focuses on the characters of Dwight (Clive Owen), Det Jack 'Jackie Boy' Raffety (Benicio Del Toro) and the prostitues of Old Town. The story begins as do all the others excluding 'That Yellow Bastard' in the present day with Shellie (Brittany Murphy) being emotionally and physically abused by her one time lover Jackie Boy in her flat. Disgusted by his behaviour and hiding in her bathroom, he current boyfriend Dwight takes revenge on Jackie Boy by shoving his head in the toilet and threatening violence if the abuse continues. Embarrassed Jackie Boy and his crew flee to Old Town, an area policed by the Prostitutes that live there, looking to reek more havoc. Dwight follows looking to kill Jackie Boy himself. However when Jackie Boy threatens one of the hookers, a group of prostitutes led by Gail (Rosario Dawson) Dwight's ex do the job for him. Upon a search of the body they find out that Jackie Boy is in fact a respected policeman, the slaying of such a character is sure to break the respected pact between Police and Prostitues resulting in a war. Panicking the girls ask Dwight to go and dump the body of the deceased detective in the tar pits. Whilst he is away mercenaries alerted by a deceitful prostitute move into Old Town and kidnap Gail, and also seek to kill Dwight. After a failed ambush on himself by mercenaries, Dwight sends a letter to head mercenary Manute (Michael Clarke Duncan) offering Jackie Boy's head for Gail, which he agrees to. The story ends when Dwight turns up with Jackie Boy's head packed with explosives and when exchanged detonates it, thus killing the mercenaries and Manute resulting in order restored to Old Town and Gail and Dwight reunited.

'The Hard Goodbye' focuses on psychotic Marv (Mickey Rourke) and his attempts to find the killer of a prostitue he slept with the night she was murdered, called Goldie (Jaime King). Marv is framed and consequently wanted for her murder. The attention of the corrupt police results in Marv killing even more police officers and going on the run, desperately hunting for Goldie's killer. Marv begins to kill his way to the top, and finds himself at a remote farm where Kevin (Elijah Wood) lives. Kevin doesn't speak in the film and is the one who actually killed Goldie. Marv's first attempts to seek revenge backfire and he finds himself locked in Kevin's basement with his Parole Officer Lucille. Lucille now posessing only one hand tells Marv how Kevin kidnaps women and then eats them alive. Marv somehow manages to escape once more and discovers that Goldie 'worked the clergy'. Now aided by Goldie's twin sister Wendy (Jaime King also) he tries once more to kill Kevin, this time succeeding. Marv also discovers that Kevin had an partner in crime the form of Cardinal Roark, Senator Roark's brother. Marv duly obliges Goldie's memory by also brutally killing Cardinal Roark for which he is finally imprisoned. This story ends with Marv forced into admitting to the killing of Kevin's victims and being put to death by electricution.

'The Customer is Always Right' is a mini-story in the film used to link the beginning and end of the film. The story involves 'The Salesman' (Josh Hartnett) a would-be assassin who mysteriously kills a woman at the beginning of the film, and offering the devious prostitue Becky a cigarette in an elevator at the end of the film.

The main strength of the movie is that rather than simply portray these stories in four seperate segments in typical chronological order, Rodriguez takes a leaf out of his good friend Quentin Tarantino's book of 'great film making' and chooses to intertwine the stories together, sometimes going back in time and then forward again to the present. This works remarkably well, keeping the viewer interested whilst intertwining these complex stories together, to create one magnificent whole.

The second strength of the film is that it looks absolutely amazing. Using state-of-the-art techniques Rodriguez makes the film look like it genuinely is a comic book simply placed on the big screen. In fact throughout the entire film there were only three sets that were actualy solid, everything else was computer generated. The comic-book effect works incredibly well and stays true to Miller's original idea resulting in cinematography perfection.

Overall I would say that Sin City is the best film of the 21st century. With a marvelous plot written by Frank Miller, and then transferred to screen beautifully by Rovert Rodriguez the film just works so well. Rodriguez seems to get the best out of all the big names on show and unlike the recent star strewn flop Bobby, it doesn't degrade the quality of the film that even small parts are played by big names. Indeed it is testament to the brilliance of Rodriguez that Miller let him make Sin City at all following his vow never to make any more movies following the terrible RoboCop 3. Ultimately this is without doubt the best comic-book adaptation out there, yet adaptation doesn't do the film justice for this isn't adaptation, this film is a animate comic book, glossy and silky and moving through the storyline effortlessly. A true masterpiece.