I've never been a big fan of Frank Miller, so this review might come off slightly biased. Miller's stories are so extremely dark and overly masculine they almost reach the point of self-parody; I often struggle to get behind the motives of the characters. Miller doesn't mess around with moral grey areas (the way, in my opinion, superior comic author Alan Moore frequently does). I think great stories ought to deal with these grey areas because they make the audience more invested in the story. Instead, in Miller's universes morality is very black and white, much like this film based off his series of comics, Sin City. However, I don't think Sin City, tries to be a great movie. I think it means to be a fun movie, filled with sex and violence meant to attract viewers rather than acclaim or awards.
The 2005 film Sin City tells at least three stories (more depending on your definition “story”), each of which more or less self-contained. This works well because one two-hour long story at the pace this film sets would likely run out of steam. The first story is about a battered cop (Bruce Willis) who saves a little girl from a pedophile, but then has the crime pinned on him and spends several years in prison where letters from the girl he saved keep him from despair. Upon his release he tracks her down, now a 19 year old stripper (Jessica Alba) only to put himself in a situation where he has to save her all over again. The second story involves a tough guy played by Mickey Rourke waking up next to a dead hooker, who he vows to avenge. Rourke's search for the killer leads him to a serial killer, creepily played by Elijah Wood, who has been eating the girls he captures. The third story revolves around a good guy (Clive Owen) and a whacked out cop (Benicio Del Toro) who throw off the delicate balance of power between the city's police and its hookers. There are some brief vignettes at the beginning and end of the film involving Josh Hartnett as some kind of assassin, but I wasn't entirely sure what was going on there.
The first thing about this movie that needs to be addressed is the striking visual style. The movie is mostly shot in black and white with some splashes of color to highlight certain objects. Red blood, green eyes, yellow flames, you get the idea. This is exactly how the images are illustrated in the comics and it translates very well to the screen. It excellently exaggerated the film noir style the comics were trying to imitate. The acting is pretty solid across the board, though I wasn't overly impressed by anyone in particular other than Wood, who is able to perfectly convey his character without speaking a single line. The script stays very faithful to the original material, which makes sense considering Frank Miller himself was a co-director along with Robert Rodriguez and “special guest director” Quentin Tarantino. The dialogue is gruff and emotional but tight. My main issues with the script were the sudden appearance and lack of explanation for a handful of characters, especially Hartnett's assassin. But there was also mention of some a mob which only vague allusions are made to, but never really materialize other than in Michael Clarke Duncan and some Irishmen. This probably made more sense to readers of the comics more familiar with the characters. The only other thing I didn't really go for was the over the top bravado of the characters and the hyper-violence, which is something I don't really go for too often, but others of you might. To each his own. My favorite part of the movie was a surprise appearance by, the then relatively unknown, Nick Offerman, who now is known for his role as Ron Swanson on NBC's Parks and Recreation.
Rating: 7.5/10 - Virtuous
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