Sin City

[StevePulaski]

Sin City (2005)
Directed by: Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez, and Quentin Tarantino (sometimes)

Bruce Willis in Sin City

Rating: ★★★½

Frank Miller's, Robert Rodriguez's, and (sometimes) Quentin Tarantino's Sin City is the very definition of a graphic novel brought to life; a beautifully photographed, realized depiction of a smutty city, soaked in saturated black and white photography, with only sporadic primary colors blue, red, and yellow finding their way on screen in the occasion. A dark, moody crime thriller, easily publishable under the category of film noir (or even neo-noir, as it's known in its contemporary form), Sin City offers the viewer and immersing two hours in a seedy city known as Basin City, a fictional, crime-infested, and three of its shadiest characters.

The first is John Hartigan, an aging, veteran police officer played by Bruce Willis. In a town thriving on the self-fulfillment and gratification of others, Hartigan is selfless, always putting himself on the line for the greater good of Basin City's questionably deserving souls. We see Hartigan work to stop a serial killer who's victims have been children and is about to rape and kill fourth soul, as well as try to involve himself in more corruption that plagues Basin City.

The next character we see is Marv (Mickey Rourke), a physically undesirable but thoroughly interesting soul. Marv is about seven-foot tall, broodish, unattractive, and build like a werewolf in leather clothing. Scars litter his face and ice seems to run through his veins, substituting blood. Marv is hung up on a hooker he met named Goldie, who looked like the human descent of an angel, desirable, illuminating, and unbelievably lovely to him in every way. After she is murdered, he looks to avenge her death in the only way he - and the rest of Basin City - knows how, which is through uncompromising, brutal, and bloody violence.

Finally, there's Dwight (Clive Owen), who is caught in the middle of a vicious and abusive love-triangle between his current girlfriend Shellie (Brittany Murphy) and her physically-tormenting ex Jackie Boy (Benicio Del Toro). Despite being seeing Jackie armed with cronies and an arsenal full of tricks and manipulative tactics, Dwight fights to keep Shellie safe, as well as banding together a group of Basin City misfits, drifters, and prostitutes in order to form an uprising against Jackie Boy and his demeaning ways.

Basin City is far too diverse and populated to simply make a film focusing on one character for the full one-hundred and twenty-three minutes, so it's nice to see that writers Elizabeth Avellan, Miller, and Rodriguez make the film as fleshed out as possible in terms of the numbers of characters there are, yet still work to develop them all. Immediately, however, the film attracts and dazzles because of its visual scheme; an almost consistently black-and-white color palette, with other occasional colors sharing small parts of the screen (like red dresses, blood, a blue-eyed prostitute, and a venomous "Yellow Bastard") makes for a rich style that completely complements the original graphic novel of Miller's. Basin City is captured in a dark, muggy light, always caught in the middle of a light rainstorm/drizzle, and consistently finding ways to be simultaneously bleak yet wholly immersing. Never has a film in the 2000's look and bled (quite literally) like a film noir).

Sin City's only real misstep is that it occasionally becomes too kill-happy, focusing on the murderous rampages, excessive violence, and brutality and forgets either the characters behind them, or, predominately, the story, which can often be a muddle. While film noir movies are sometimes known for their unclear plots, Sin City does have a pretty clear one - mainly functioning as an anthology between characters - but its narrative richness could be more compelling had a foot been taking off the gas of the violence a few times. Yet this is not enough to derail the aesthetically sublime and, for the most part, well-acted display of neo-noir affects that work to create one of the most immersing films based solely on location that I've ever seen.

Starring: Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, Benicio Del Toro, Jessica Alba, Brittany Murphy, Elijah Wood, and Powers Boothe. Directed by: Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez, and Quentin Tarantino (sometimes).