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SIN CITY (2005)
Nice to see Rutger Hauer in a reputable movie again, isn't it? I don't know if this movie is enough to convince me Robert Rodriguez is more than the hack I've come to conclude he is, but it's fun to watch and demonstrates a certain amount of nerve in its making. Rodriguez resigned from the Director's Guild in order to give directing co-credit to comic book guy Frank Miller; I don't know how much Miller was involved on-set, but it seems that Rodriguez made the movie so faithful to Miller's source material that the frames from that comic were often used as storyboards. Quentin Tarantino even directs one scene, though I doubt anybody would be able to pick out which one. Sin City is a semi-anthology of related stories in a crime- and sleaze-infested town where the broads pack heat and the men like their whiskey straight...I could go on. Suffice it to say, it covers all the hard-boiled bases, with an exactingness that would sink a lesser movie into the tedium of cliché. The stories and characters are so standard as to not be much worth describing; what the stories lack in originality, they try to make up for in perversity, what with all that cannibalism, pedophilia, castration, talking corpses, heads on plaques, and heads in unflushed toilets. Three things, however, set Sin City apart and help take this well-worn genre into a fresher place. The first is Mickey Rourke, unrecognizable under a makeup job that seems inspired by Robert Z'Dar. He takes - and delivers - ridiculous levels of punishment and doesn't complain, often mocking his enemies for failing to make more of an impression. It's not a deep characterization, but it's so vividly realized (and often very funny) that I suspect Rourke may have set a new standard in macho posturing, the levels of which seen here haven't been in evidence since Jesse Ventura in Predator. The second is the violence; this is a really violent movie. REALLY violent. I mean...for whatever reason, my sister saw this movie the week after I did (surely, she didn't take the fact that I liked it as an indicator that she should see it) and even now, weeks later, can occasionally be heard to mutter about how movies like this shouldn't be allowed to be made. It's a hard enough R that it actually got an R here in Alberta, the first theatrically-released movie I can remember doing so since...well, pretty much ever, but the ratings system has changed a few times of late. Here's an example of how rare an R is here: R is a step up from 18A, and House Of Wax got an 18A, and that happens so rarely that it necessitated flyers being taped all over the theatre stating that it's 18A and teens can't get in without an adult. It is perhaps a testament to some silliness at the MPAA that this movie demonstrates just how much gore can be gotten away with as long as the gore isn't red (see also any PG-13 monster movie, or Star Trek 6). Rourke's blood is red, but I don't recall anyone else's. That's because of Sin City's most arresting aspect, its look in general - a slick, glossy black-and-white punctuated by the occasional person, object, or bodily fluid shown in a single vivid color, never more than one per frame from what I recall, except maybe those police lights. It's been a few weeks. Sometimes that style is used as a crutch though; one scene where a gruesomely murdered corpse is passed off as a passed-out drunk couldn't possibly work were the movie in color, or for that matter, if his blood had been shown as red, as is some of it elsewhere in the movie. And we're shown a number of things twice when once would have done (heads in unflushed toilets, men railroaded into confessing to and being punished for crimes they didn't commit, men leaping from a height of several stories only to land gracefully, without incident...come on!). The middle story here, with Clive Owen assisting a gang of NRA prostitutes, is probably the most obviously unnecessary, but it's not at all unenjoyable. When you watch a movie like this, you probably shouldn't worry about necessity. Sin City is the most enjoyable R-rated comic book movie I can think of at the moment; never mind that the only other ones I can think of are the two Punishers. It's not for anyone without a tolerance for slick, stylized extreme violence, and if you're reading this, you'll probably be okay. (c) Brian J. Wright 2005 BACK TO THE S's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE |