14-6-09 Can't believe I haven't written a review for the whole of 2009, watch this space...
14-6-09 Can't believe I haven't written a review for the whole of 2009, watch this space...
Member since:02.06.2007
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* PICTURE THIS... *
Feeling sinful? I tuned into the BBC2 premiere of 2005's Sin City tonight with no aspirations for what the film should be like or for what the storyline should be, infact the only thing I knew about the film was that it was a pretty big deal and featured a very artistic taste of cinematography that I didn't think I would take to.. but more on that later on. I felt that the amount of promotion going into this premiere, and the fact that it couldn't make it on to a lot on BBC1 wasn't going to bode well, but having just finished my daily dose of Big Brother it was time to flick over to the big movie I was planning to spend my Sunday night with.
* BASIN CITY *
I caught the film just as the introduction story was reaching its climax, but after hearing from a friend exactly what was going on it doesn't sound like I missed much. Normally I would hate to catch a film after even missing a split second of the beginning, as I feel that is an important part of setting the scene for the movie, however giving Sin City a chance I soon realised that this introduction had no baring on the rest of the movie. I soon realised that Sin City was actually a bunch of little stories set on a popular comic book series by Frank Miller that have of course been brought to the big screen by Quentin Tarantino. I think it would be very easy for someone to bring a comic book to the big screen and completely avoid bringing in any aspects of the actual comic book look, but that was not a factor here.
Having never heard of the Sin City comics I had no idea just how graphic and adult the themes of each individual story would be. The first introduction story to probably give people first tuning in a sense of if they can stick the movie or not was about women who pay men to feel loved right before they committ suicide. Obviously I didn't know this was happening at the time, so when I saw the man lay the bullet into the woman I didn't know what was going on. The first real story comes after the opening
sequence, featuring Bruce Willis as aging police officer 'John Hartigan'. Battling his health issues he has one final case he wants to settle that includes Junior (Nick Stahl) as a dangerous child molester. Having found out the location of where he is keeping 11 year-old Nancy Callhan, Hartigan heads in with no time to wait for back-up. The story sees Hartigan willing to give his own life, as it is worth it to save the life of a young girl. The story does not actually conclude until the end of the movie, only set 8 years in advance where Nancy is now a young woman (Jessica Alba). The conclusion to the story came somewhat as a surprise to me, but makes for a heartfelt end to the movie.
Doing more than just killing time in the movie is the second of three pretty heavy stories, all taking place in this very creatively named 'Basin City', especially considering what the population of the city we have been introduced to are like. Marv (Mickey Rourke) is at the centre of the story as he tries to avenge the murder of the beautiful Goldie (Jiame King) who was killed in bed next to him after sleeping together. This is where you truly get your first taster of just how far the stories in the Sin City franchise go, as they include Marv and his parol officer getting kidnapped by a cannibal who actually chews the skin off the hand of Marv's parol officer. The scenes are not seen, but her expression and screams when she speaks of the issue are enough to have anyone grabbing their hand, just like scenes where people are being hanged will have you wrapping your hands around your own neck in a bid to free the character from their torture. Marv's story was probably the hardest of the lot to follow, and is probably the most violent. I would say the story that wins the award for most unsettling has to fall to the story previous, however that was only due to the climax of that.
The final story puts the beautiful Shellie (Brittany Murphy) in her apartment where she is being hassled through the door by her on-off boyfriend Jackie (Benicio del Toro) who she still lives in fear of due to domestic violence. However, her new boyfriend Dwight (Clive Owen) is on hand to get revenge, and is not afraid of Jackie and his four other drunken friends, breathing heavily in the hallway. Having scared of Jackie, Dwight realises he has put more women in danger due to setting him free on the streets, and decides to drive off in hot pursuit. Having thought that we would see our first car chase of the movie, it actually gets intervened by the police so we don't get anything too exciting in the way of car chases at any point throughout the film, however the police soon turn around as Jackie drives into Old Town. Yes there are police in Basin City, however they all seem corrupt as most of the characters in the film. Thankfully throughout most of the movie characters aren't too corrupt that you don't know where their priorities lie. Old Town is ran by prostitutes, that sure know how to look after themselves, so when Jackie aims his gun at an off-duty hooker it's not long before he has his hand cut off and the rest of his body feels the brunt of Miho (Devon Aoki). The group soon get the shock of their lives though as they hunt through the pockets of the murdered males to find that Jackie was actually a well respected police officer, and that his murder could cause all out war and completely destroy the 'agreement' the women of Old Town have with the law and that they will once again be ruled by the pimps. Dwight, being the nice guy he is, then has to do everything he possibly can to cover up the murder, however with a mole in Old Town it is not going to be the easiest of nights.
Having all the scenes set at night, it means it is hard to keep track of just how long each story is supposed to cover, however they often through up comments about how things happened two or so days ago. In terms of actual time you are watching, I would imagine each story is evenly split up to have its own time amount, so with the film lasting almost two hours anyway you get some pretty lengthy stories out of the three different ones. Of course, as I mentioned the first story is split into two so what it misses in length at the start it more than makes up for at the end of the movie. As you reach the end of the movie you will begin to see how each of the stories overlap one another, however they are not connected in the deep ways I thought they perhaps could be. I think it's worth a mention that Aoki, who plays the security device of Old Town, is in a role that is a farcry from what I remembered last seeing her in - '2 Fast 2 Furious'. Whilst she was a pretty competitive and powerful woman in that movie, I do not remember her making someones face look like a Pez dispenser in that. I see she has signed up for 2009's sequel, which makes me very excited in more than one way. And while we're on the subject of casting, the movie has no problems in keeping me interest in ways of big names such as Willis, Owen and Murphy.
* LOOKIE HERE *
If there was one thing that was going to put me off this movie more than anything else, it would have been the way it looked, which just shows why you should not judge a DVD by its cover. Think that's the first time I've ever heard that saying. When I watched 'Kill Bill' I could not make it all the way through without switching off as I hated the scenes where it turned all strange. Let it be said that Sin City is nothing like Uma Thurman's bad girl impression. I thought the introduction story looked incredibly sexy in the way they showed it, and when they showed the scene sideways and made each character blocks of white for the kiss I could completely understand why they used that powerful moment at least once in each of the other stories. After a while I forgot I was watching a movie that looked different to any other.
When Willis first turned up at the docks to save Nancy's life it was as though they had just stuck a three-dimensional character on a cartoon background, a way I feel I had never seen a comic brought to the big screen before. In terms of colour, yes it is very black and white so I could see younger viewers switching off for the fact that it looks like something from the 50s, however that would not be an accurate representation of the movie at all. When the uses of colour are done, most notely red (Schlinder's List anyone, hope I've used the right example there) it is used well - however perhaps it can be said that red is used too often. I know that blue is used to single out one of the prostitutes eyes, and there is also a use of yellow is used, but red does crop up the most.. and by that I am not saying it's a movie full of blood. Don't try and second guess this film and the way it will try to make scenes look.
* IS IT ALL THAT? *
I'm no camera angle expert, so I won't try to sound like one any further but what I can say about the film is that I did like the way it looked. I can say I liked the stories, however some did push the boundaries of what is reasonable to put on the big screen. And I did like the performances, so what is bad to say about the movie? When I thought I was going to get bored, I didn't. Sin City did stop me in my tracks tonight more than I expected it to and more than justifies the 18 year old certificate it holds. If you feel that the movie may hold some touchy subjects that you do not want to dabble in, do not watch it, but if you feel like being pushed all the way in quite a creative manner be my guest and watch this.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Production Year: 1964 - Action/Adventure - Director: Cyril Endfield - Original Language: English - Classification: Parental Guidance - Starring:Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson, James Booth, Michael Caine, Nigel Green
Action/Adventure - Director: Peter Jackson - Original Language: English - Classification: 12 years and over - Starring:Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Liv Tyler, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Andy Serkis
Production Year: 2002 - Action/Adventure - Director: Vincenzo Natali - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring:Lucy Liu, David Hewlett, Anne Marie Scheffler, Joseph Scoren, Matthew Sharp, Jeremy Northam
Excellent review. I too didn't like the look of the film at first glance & put off watching it for quite some time. I'm glad I gave in though, I really enjoyed this film
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 ...
Postage & Packaging: Free! Availability: Usually dispatched within 10 to 12 days...
Walk down the right back alley in Sin City and you can find anything... Welcome to Sin ... more
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...
Postage & Packaging: £0.00 Availability: 3-5 working days
Based on Frank Miller's series of edgy graphic novels, co-directors Miller and Robert ... more
Rodriguez deliver an amazing ensemble cast in the coolest movie of the year! Bruce Willis stars as Hartigan, a cop with a vow to protect a stripper, Nancy (Jessica Al...
![Sin City [DVD] [2005]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78502154.jpg "Sin City [DVD] [2005]")
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