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Sin City: Mark's Take
01/05/2005 . Source: Mark R. Leeper 
The flash is exaggerated and the plot has minimal importance in this hyper-noir crime story based on Frank Miller's graphic novel. To take a phrase from the script, it is "loud and nasty." Mark has more respect than affection for this admittedly successful effort to give a film the feel of a graphic novel. Buy Sin City in the USA - or Buy Sin City in the UK  But the characters were just not developed and the story has the resonance of a "Heavy Metal" comic book story. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10
What's black and white and red all over? Well, one answer is the blood-soaked, enhanced-monochrome adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel SIN CITY. In this film co-directors Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller do for film noir what Sergio Leone did for the western. They make a film that is solid dramatic scenes without the plot connective tissue. I cannot say that there was no plot to SIN CITY.
By the end of the film the pieces remarkably seem to add up to a kind of plot. (Please don't write me for explanations. I may have followed the plot for at most five minutes and then I might have been fooling myself.) But from one scene to the next the writers seem to be just throwing in plot complications that lead to more sensationalized scenes. This film has multiple castrations, a hanging, many nearly nude women, multiple serial killers, corrupt politicians . . . the list goes on and on and on and on.
SIN CITY has two kinds of scenes, those that are highly-charged and those that are super-charged. For me the excess of excess of excess became off-putting. The story has not one really interesting character and probably not one uninteresting scene. The dialog is not just over-ripe, it is downright fermented.
Understanding how any specific scene fits into the overall plot is not only pointless, it is nearly impossible. Perhaps it is best for the viewer to just let the film wash over him. There are multiple plots including one with the mob trying to take over Oldtown. That the seedy neighborhood of a place called Basin City that seems to have equal parts of New York and Los Angeles. Also, there are interlocking plots concerning two or three serial killers.
This is a film of much more style than substance. Even if the scenes all fit together to make a plot, it would be a rather hackneyed one. One scene after another is soaked in blood and testosterone. If you drew a line from Raymond Chandler to Mickey Spillane and extended it out three times you would get to SIN CITY.
Maybe there is not more blood than in other film but it just seems there is a lot because it is highlighted. The film is shot in color then the color is removed entirely or with the possible exception of one or two objects in a scene. Maybe the entire scene will be monochrome and just the copious splattered blood will be in vivid red. This was a visual technique pioneered in the 1992 film ZENTROPA and in television ads for some "simple yellow pill" whose name I have forgotten. Stephen Spielberg also used it for some scenes of SCHINDLER'S LIST.
Here the technique combines with Robert Rodriguez's terrific photography to recreate the potent if less than realistic images of the art work in a Frank Miller comic book. And the imitation of graphic style is impressive.
Bruce Willis plays John Hartigan, a misunderstood hero with a good heart and a bad one (figuratively and medically respectively). This is a film that is top-heavy with familiar faces, some in unfamiliar make-up. Without knowing he was in the film, I spotted Mickey Rourke, but I was proud of myself for doing so. Also along are notables like Elijah Wood, Benicio Del Toro, Michael Clark Duncan, Josh Hartnett, Michael Madsen, Clive Owen, Nick Stahl, Rutger Hauer, and Powers Booth. Wow, that is an impressive cast, and at least they know to not play the film tongue-in-cheek.
This is a film full of testosterone-stoked cliches. There is a lot of sound and fury but not much in the way of any substance. But visually it is hypnotic. On balance I rate it +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10.
Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 2005 Mark R. Leeper
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