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- Cert:
- Running time: 124 minutes
- Year: 2005
- Released: 3rd June 2005
- Widescreen Ratio: 1.85:1
Directors:
- Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller
(and guest director Quentin Tarantino)
Producers:
- Elizabeth Avellan, Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez, Andrew Rona, Bill Scott, Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein & Brad Weston
Screenplay:
- Frank Miller & Robert Rodriguez
(adapted from the graphic novel by Frank Miller)
Cinematographer:
- Robert Rodriguez
Music:
- John Debney, Graeme Revell & Robert Rodriguez
Cast:
- Hartigan: Bruce Willis
Marv: Mickey Rourke
Dwight: Clive Owen
Jackie Boy: Benecio Del Toro
Nancy Callahan: Jessica Alba
Gail: Rosario Dawson
Kevin: Elijah Wood
Roark Junior/Yellow Bastard: Nick Stahl
Shellie: Brittany Murphy
Bob: Michael Madsen
Lucille: Carla Gugino
Becky: Alexis Bledel
Senator Rourke: Powers Boothe
The Man: Josh Hartnett
Cardinal Rourke: Rutger Hauer
Manute: Michael Clarke Duncan
Miho: Devon Aoki
Make no mistake about it – Sin Cityis one of the most gruelling and unapologetic displays of cinematic machismoof the 21st Century… well, at least until the inevitable sequels…
Adapted from the sensationally gritty graphic novels by Frank Miller (arevered genius of the comic-book genre), Sin City is simply ripped from thepage and thrown onto the silver screen by Robert Rodriguez – a one-timemaverick director (El Mariachi) who more recently gave us the increasinglysilly Spy Kids trilogy.
However, with Sin City, Rodriguez quickly reaffirms his maverick streak.Indeed, his illegal co-director credit with author Miller led to Rodriguezlosing his membership with the Director’s Guild of America (well, rules weremeant to be broken…) One can only hope this return to form imbuesRodriguez with the good sense to shove future firecrackers up the ass ofAmerican cinema.
Sin City, quite simply, is an astonishing achievement. Filmed entirely withgreenscreen, the backgrounds and vehicles only ever existed digitally in acomputer (as with Sky Captain & The World Of Tomorrow, but much better.)
If you’ve read Frank Miller’s graphic novels you’ve basically seen thefilm’s storyboard. Rodriguez is meticulous with the attention to detail. Noother film has ever been so faithful to its source material; making Sin Citya comic-book adaptation no fan can claim “lost its soul” in the process ofbecoming celluloid.
The movie is split into three main stories – in one, an ugly brute calledMarv (Mickey Rourke, on career resuscitating form) avenges the death of aprostitute called Goldie. Elsewhere, Dwight (Clive Owen, finally erasingmemories of King Arthur) makes it his mission to kill Jackie Boy (BenecioDel Toro), a hook-nosed slimeball harassing the city’s hookers in the OldTown district run by leather-clad vixen Gail (Rosario Dawson). Finally,hardboiled cop Hartigan (Bruce Willis) finds himself in an impossiblesituation while trying to rescue a young girl from the clutches of apaedophile.
Each vignette lightly touches on each other – but only by virtue ofcharacters intruding across stories in the background. It would have beengreat fun to have had stronger cohesion between the tales – as you feel SinCity missed a trickPulp Fictionemployed to greater effect – but the movie still manages to neatly bookendits stories rather nicely.
The actors are all on fine form, chewing the scenery and narrating meatyslices of film noir dialogue with relish. Mickey Rourke’s Marv steals theshow with his lantern jaw and imperviousness to serious injury (watch him ashe’s knocked into the air like a ragdoll by a vengeful car driver!) Rourkenot only looks perfect under layers of latex, but he has the essence of thecharacter burned within him and reels off the dialogue and goofy one-linerswith great composure.
Clive Owen, while the weakest of the three male leads, nevertheless createsa dashing antihero, and Bruce Willis (while essentially resurrecting PulpFiction’s Butch in a trench coat) remains as steadfastly charismatic andgrizzled as ever.
Rounding out the cast is a veritable who’s who of Hollywood talent (andRodriguez alumni): Jessica Alba is suitably sassy as table-dancer Nancy,Brittany Murphy is okay but her voice grates throughout as a saloonwaitress, Benecio Del Toro conjures a sinister villain with creepy vocals,Elijah Wood is deliciously sinister as light-footed cannibal Kevin andRosario Dawson is great as hard-ass hooker Gail. Peripheral characters fromCarla Gugino, Alexis Bledel, Michael Clarke Duncan, Rutger Hauer, JoshHartnett, Devon Aoki, and everyone else are also solid creations.
It’s a testament to Rodriguez and Miller that such note-perfect performanceswere pulled from a greenscreen environment that seemingly thwarted GeorgeLucas’ efforts in the Star Wars prequels. The visual effects throughout aregenerally very good live-action representations of comic book drawings,although there are occasions throughout (particularly in the first third)that are too obviously “unnatural” and badly composed.
Occasionally the movie resembles intercut sequences from a video game,although once you have settled into Sin City’s groove this becomes lessnoticeable. Obviously, virtual sets being used to this extreme is arelatively new undertaking – and it’s clear the directors were graduallybecoming more at ease with the greenscreen process. By the half-way point,the process has almost become unnoticeable.
Sin City is also notable for its shocking use of graphic violence. Ofcourse, the multiple beheadings, dismemberments, hangings, shootings andslashings all escape the censor due to Sin City’s stylized monochrome colourscheme, but the gore is still unwaveringly powerful in its depiction. Dashesof colour permeate through this black and white world: golden manes of hair,the blue of eyes, and – of course – the red of freshly spilt blood. Thisonly adds to the imaginative streak of the piece, and makes the copiousamount of bloodletting more palatable for audiences.
To summarise; Sin City is a rollercoaster ride of macho entertainment.Anyone after a whirlwind ride through a dark metropolis populated bynefarious characters caught in impossible situations, being doused withbullets, while simultaneously crashing cars, detonating bombs and havingtheir hands chopped off by swastika-shaped ninja stars, will love everybloody second.
The plots may be simplistic adult-themed tales, essentially – hoping only toelicit maximum squirm factor by their implausible, yet fascinating, diveinto seedy and violent territory… but, with a movie called Sin City, whatdid you expect?
This is grandiose filmmaking for every testosterone-fuelled male (and somefemales, I’m sure) to gawp at, while also providing welcome slices of jetblack comedy (a body-impaling arrow gag is sublime.)
It really would be a sin to miss it!
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.