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| Release Date: | April 1st, 2005 (US) - June 3rd, 2005 (UK) |
| Runtime: | 124 minutes |
| Rated: | R |
| Genres: | Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller |
| Directed by: | Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller, and "special guest director" Quentin Tarantino |
| Written by: | Frank Miller |
| Starring: | Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Clive Owen, Nick Stahl, Powers Boothe, Rutger Hauer, Elijah Wood, Rosario Dawson, Benicio Del Toro, Jaime King, Devon Aoki, Brittany Murphy, Michael Clarke Duncan, Carla Gugino, Alexis Bledel, Josh Hartnett, Marley Shelton, Michael Madsen |
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 Let me tell you all a story. It happened about two years ago, somewhere in tenth grade. I was at the library, browsing for something to read. It's not a very good library, but I went ahead and saw what they had in the way of graphic novels. My eyes zeroed through the meager selection on the words, "The Big Fat Kill". What was a library doing with a title like this? I sent for it, and I'm guessing even the librarian who checked it out to me was just as surprised, because I think I recall her asking me, as she looked at the cover, if my parents knew I was reading it. Thus began my schooling in the ways of Frank Miller. I was enthralled by Big Fat Kill, and read it in a matter of days, savoring the shadowy black-and-white panels and colorful characters. It was completely unlike anything I'd ever read. In fact, I probably wouldn't be exaggerating if I assumed that Sin City reinvented the way I looked at comic books. Jump to two years later. Sin City, the movie adaptation, is created.
First, a summary for those new to the Sin City universe. The movie is composed of three full stories and a short story. The first central story, "The Hard Goodbye", is the first Sin City novel, the one that started it all in 1993 when it was simple entitled "Sin City" as one entry in the soon-to-be series. The Hard Goodbye is the story of Marv (Rourke), a hard-bitten ex-marine who finds his one-night-lover Goldie (King) murdered, and with the cops pounding on his door. After escaping from the eye of the five-oh, Marv vows to get bloody, relentless vengeance on the bastards who killed Goldie – a vicious cannibalistic serial killer who never speaks (Wood) and a corrupt cardinal (Hauer).
"Big Fat Kill" is the story of Dwight (Owen), who follows drunken scumbag Jackie Boy (Del Toro) and his cronies to Old Town, where prostitutes with guns and their steadfast leader Gail (Dawson) make the rules. Jackie ends up overstepping his boundaries and the entire gang is wiped out by Gail's one-woman army Miho (Aoki). However, Dwight's suspicions come full-circle when Old Town finds a badge on Jackie. A dead cop in the middle of Old Town will mean war between the prostitutes and the state. Dwight must rid of the bodies and battle a gang of IRA mercenaries in order to rescue Gail from the villainous Manute (Duncan), both for the sake of Gail and Old Town.
Story three is "That Yellow Bastard". Grizzled police detective John Hartigan (Willis), almost set to retire, puts his life on the line to save young Nancy Callahan from a psychotic rapist (Stahl). Injured severely, he is brought back to health by the rapist's father, Senator Roark, who intends to make Hartigan's life a living hell. He rots in prison for eight years until he hears that Nancy might be hurt again. Confessing to Junior Roark's crime, he leaves prison – only to find grown-up nineteen-year-old Nancy (Alba), now a stripper, alive and well. It's all a bluff set up the enigmatic Yellow Bastard, and now he knows where Nancy is thanks to Hartigan. The hell-ravaged detective must once again come to Nancy's rescue.
When still photos of Sin City first broke out on the internet and the six-minute trailer began its circulation (which I hadn't seen at that point), I thought to myself, "Hmm. Dunno. Could be good." You, the reader, may interpret this as disinterest; it was at that point, as I knew nothing about the film apart from the tease those pictures gave me. My outlook, however, changed vastly as I began to receive fact after fact about the movie as its release grew closer in the distance. Robert Rodriguez was directing. The movie was based on the three most popular novels in the Sin City series in their entirety. RR broke off from the Director's Guild in order to co-direct Sin City with Frank Miller, the first time I'd ever heard of a director teaming up with the creator of the original production.
The movie, except for the players and certain objects, were all digital, something I would have never guessed on my own. And, of course, I saw the minute-and-a-half-long teaser trailer, promising a slew of top-dollar actors and actresses who, through costumes, CGI, and prosthetics, looked exactly like their comic book counterparts. I began to realize that I would be missing what would surely be one of the most monumental cinematic experiences of my life if I chose not to see this in theaters on its release. I quickly scrambled to read the rest of the novels, devouring the remaining two with earnest. The movie was looking more and more authentic to the cause of the comic books, and anybody who knew me on a personal basis during the month of March probably had to endure my endless salivating over the movie. Finally, I went and saw it in the Spokane Valley Mall Regal Theater on April 2nd, the day after it was first released, in the year of our Lord 2005, at 6:45 PM. It would prove to be two hours I would never forget.
Lemme say it pure and simple: Sin City rocks. Hard. As a fan of the comic books, the only thing I asked for is something close to a coherent adaptation, and the Rodriguez-Miller team gives us that in abundance. Nearly every scene in the movie is a direct adaptation from a panel in the books. The original series was inked in black-and-white with only certain characters allowed color; the movie retains this, filming everything but Yellow Bastard, The Customer, Blondie, and Nancy in color. Nancy and Blondie are the only characters out of the lineup to not have been originally illustrated, but they look so brilliant that I really don't care.
The movie is gorgeous, rich in shot and style. CGI is getting to the point where the world of live filmmaking is becoming threatened, but in this case, the CGI accentuates the film; the backgrounds are realistic to make you believe they're real, but not so real that it eliminates the feel of a living, breathing comic book. Certain little touches are used to make the movie appear more like the original series, like glowing white blood or certain scenes filmed in extreme black-n-white contrasts (such as The Salesman and The Customer embracing, which you might have seen in the trailer). I might as well not even bother trying to cover the whole nine yards when it comes to visuals. There's just too many to list here.
All the actors who appear in the movie are now in my cool books. I knew Willis and Del Toro wouldn't disappoint me, but seeing players relatively unknown to me like Rourke and Stahl hit it out of the ballpark complete with prosthetics was a real treat. Jessica Alba also really impressed me; I never really dug her "Dark Angel" series, so her performance here is all the more stunning. Finally, this is probably my favorite movie with Elijah Wood ever. His role is totally unlike anything he's done before, signaling that he's probably going to go on to some really stand-out roles in the future.
Can there possibly be any complaints? Yes, but not from me. Being a fan of the comic books, I was perfectly happy with the movie's take on it, but for some, Sin City might be too...weird for their tastes. If you want a perfectly serious movie about crime and corruption, Sin City isn't it. Then again, some of the great movies ever made about crime and corruption turn out to be somewhat silly (a la Quentin Tarantino and the Coen Brothers). So if you don't mind overly yellow troll people and talking corpses populating your movie along with the more somber heroes, Sin City is for you.
I can't recommend this movie enough. Sin City is not only a landmark movie for the world of comic books but also a landmark movie in the realm of director-creator co-operation. You might like this movie and you might not, but you have to admit that its production politics are spot-on. Stick it out for its DVD release – you know I will. |
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Jesse Rose
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