Before Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino teamed up for Grindhouse, they made Sin City. The adaptation of Frank Miller, the other director of this, is faithful and fun. The film is bloody and beautiful. It is hard not to be seduced by the red blood and black and white.
The film revolves around three stories of violence in Basin City, a city overrun by crime. There's Marv (Mickey Rourke), a man whose girlfriend was murdered while he was sleeping and is constantly searching for her killer. Then there is Dwight. Dwight (Clive Owen) is a man who is having an affair with a woman, played by Brittany Murphy, whose boyfriend's name is Jackie Boy (Benicio Del Toro). Jackie Boy and Dwight are determined to kill each other. The final story is Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba), a stripper whose life is once again in danger. Luckily, Hartigan (Bruce Willis), an aging police officer, steps in to save her. Other cast members include Josh Harnett, Alexis Bledel, Rosario Dawson, and Carla Gugino.
Sin City is a cool update on film noir. The old genre is looked at through comic book eyes and taken to the screen in black and white. Blood appears in red (there's a lot of it in this flick) and yellow is seen on the ugly villain The Yellow Bastard. The fact that it is black and white makes the blood even more effective because one can really see it in contrast to the background. It's the graphic, bloody sequences that make this movie memorable.
People are now used to Frank Miller's films, but when this came out it was his first. Either you love it or you hate, but I really love it. Tomorrow marks the release of The Spirit, which I look forward to seeing, but it looks all too similar to this. Intelligent and gory, the seductive color makes Robert Rodriguez's film memorable and thrilling.
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