Sin City

After a brief prologue and a slick opening credit sequence where the actors’ names appear with their black-and-white comic book counterpart, SIN CITY (which brings three of writer-artist Frank Miller’s comic arcs to monochromatic life) gives us a taste of “That Yellow Bastard”, in which fanatical cop Hartigan (Bruce Willis), on the eve of his retirement, is on a mission to rescue a young girl from sicko senator son Junior (Nick Stahl).

Once Hartigan absorbs more metal than an Ozzfest crowd (don’t worry, SIN CITY’s major characters shrug off bullets and other forms of physical punishment easier than Wile E. Coyote), the movie plows into “The Hard Goodbye”, which follows cartoonish bruiser Marv (Mickey Rourke after excessive prosthetic mutation) on his ferocious quest to avenge the death of angelic prostitute Goldie (Jaime King). Marv’s ultraviolent undertaking finds him crossing paths with a mute cannibal (Elijah Wood), corrupt cops, whore-warrior Gail (Rosario Dawson) and her Old Town harlots, and a high-ranking member of the clergy.

With Marv’s bloody mission accomplished, SIN CITY segues into “The Big Fat Kill”, in which fugitive criminal Dwight (Clive Owen) finds himself a reluctant peacekeeper when shaggy Jackie Boy (Benicio Del Toro), the former lover of Dwight’s current flame Shellie (Brittany Murphy), makes a drunken incursion into the Sin City district where the prostitutes rule. A few swishes from the sword of deadly ninja hooker Miho (Devon Aoki) and suddenly the tenuous truce between the police and the Old Town working girls is threatened, which means it’s time for Dwight to stand up for his friends and kill a whole lot of people.

When that little matter is viciously resolved, the focus returns to Hartigan, who survived the outcome of his final case only to spend eight solitary years behind bars in order to protect the identity of innocent young Nancy. As promised, the young girl writes him letters each week under an assumed name, but he suspects the worst when the correspondence suddenly ceases and he’s paid a visit by a stinky lemon-skinned creep. Satisfying his captors by confessing to a variety of crimes, a haggard Hartigan hits the streets looking to protect little Nancy, instead finding her a frighteningly fit woman (Jessica Alba) who strips for a living. Unfortunately he also realizes he’s led the reconstructed Junior, that yellow bastard, right to her.

Giddy with nihilism, Rodriguez (along with “co-director” Miller) has channeled a handful of graphic novels through his mainframe processors, outputting an accurate full-motion interpretation of the books’ cinematic framing, the stark contrast, that distinctive Miller rain, and all the profanity and relentless mayhem. As comic adaptations go, the results are more literal (and certainly more gruesome) than many of the nearest contenders. But considering the subject matter, SIN CITY just looks too clean, like… crisp grit. With all of Rodriguez’s celebrated Dark as it may be, SIN CITY is just not dirty enough.

With a couple of significant exceptions (alien oddity Aoki just doesn’t work as Miho, while Michael Madsen was apparently afflicted with amnesia and forgot everything he ever learned about acting), the performers are all appropriate for their parts. It’s just a matter of whether they’re playing their role (Owen, Dawson, Willis) or truly embodying it (Rourke, Wood, Stahl). Rutger Hauer, Nicky Katt, Tommy Flanagan and Powers Boothe also briefly enjoy gnawing the polygonal scenery. And then there’s the ladies, most notably the spectacularly naked Carla Gugino and Jamie King, whose phenomenal curves do not detract from their fleeting effectiveness. Even Brittany Murphy gets into the vibe with her floozy delivery. Jessica Alba is preposterously hot, but the extent of her emoting abilities is limited to her succulent lips and undulating hips.

Miller’s written work was already shallow sub-Spillane pulp loaded with crudely defined characters and indulgent prose, but the excessive amount of narration delivered in the film’s context and the unquestioning devotion to the source material makes me wonder if he should have exercised a little self-editing. The style of the film is its greatest asset, but some of the computer-fabricated scenery lends a videogame cut-scene aesthetic, as when actors are quite obviously pretending to walk while the fake environment scrolls behind them; other times the humans seem to sort of hover, like Colorforms arranged on a static background.

The film also suffers in its structure and pacing. Considering how Rourke clutches the material in his alley-monster meat-hooks and just throttles the shit out of it, Marv’s story is by far the most viscerally rewarding and should’ve been saved for the finale. The movie loses rhythm with “The Big Fat Kill”, which of the three stories is probably the least imaginative and sluggish (further encumbered by Owen’s lugubrious delivery), sort of an urban variant of BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA. Unfortunately our antihero Dwight is surrounded by empowered women who virtually contradict his character’s necessity, made even more evident when he has to follow Marv’s primal tale. Still, it is the only segment with an upbeat ending. Meanwhile, Hartigan’s abnormal love story (hell, all three chapters are basically atypical love stories) would’ve been better served whole rather than split into bookends, especially since the film already has a preface and coda featuring another character (Josh Hartnett’s contract killer). And though the stories do intersect, given how verbatim the rest of the film is, all three chapters should’ve had title cards, which surely would benefit those unfamiliar with the graphic novels.

However, none of this truly diminishes what Rodriguez has accomplished with this experiment. His hyperstylish and slavish translation of Miller’s source material indeed fulfills all promises of a seedy, nightmarish metropolis packed with intense violence, gorgeous dames and stilted voiceovers.