Sin City
From the trailers, this movie should’ve been great, wild pulp. Pure exploitation joy- disreputable, violent, sexy, wickedly funny. And so it is…to a point. My hope was that “Sin City”- based on three of Frank Miller’s iconic graphic novels of a city that exists in a moral vaccum, with right-and-wrong decided by vigilantes, not law enforcement- would be the movie where Robert Rodriguez- the do-it-all filmmaker behind “Desparado,” “Once Upon a Time in Mexico,” and the “Spy Kids” trilogy (over the years his duties have come to include writing, directing, producing, photographing, editing, and scoring his films)- would prove himself to be more than a technical wizard and become a real, complete filmmaker to rival his friend and frequent collaborator, Quentin Tarantino (Rodriguez directed the Tarantino scripted and starring “From Dusk Till Dawn,” both directed segments of the dreadful “Four Rooms,” and Rodriguez scored “Kill Bill: Vol. 2” for $1 (a favor paid back here by Tarantino, who directed a deviously funny scene in a car for the same fee)). This is to say, that the hope would be that Rodriguez would add one key ingredient to his storyteller repretoire that would put him on the same plane as Tarantino (whose gotten better with each film)- substance. As enjoyable as Rodriguez’s films are at their best (“Spy Kids,” “Desparado”), the ones I like the least of his (“Spy Kids 3-D,” “From Dusk Till Dawn”) are little more than stylistic exercises that don’t resonate on an emotional level, which is to say, they don’t engage you in the story with entertaining characters or palpable situations the characters must navigate. You see glimpses of it in his best films (“Spy Kids,” “Desparado,” “Spy Kids 2”), but beyond that, even the passable entertainments (“Once Upon a Time in Mexico,” “El Mariachi,” the underrated “The Faculty”) are just “watch what I can do” guilty pleasures with very little brains behind them. The hope was, “Sin City” would be the film where Rodriguez would break out, pull together his considerable technical skills, hone the type of character-driven storytelling he’s occasionally shown (at its’ best in the first two “Spy Kids” films) and Tarantino mastered years ago, and come up with a visual and literal tour de force of his own. In other words, his “Pulp Fiction” or “Kill Bill.”
There are moments in “Sin City” the film- I started reading the series’ “The Yellow Bastard,” but didn’t finish- when that promise is reality. In fact, two of the film’s three major segments, are some of the best directing Rogriguez- who had to quit the Directors Guild when he insisted on a co-directing credit for Miller- has ever done. But as a whole, the film- even at times in those two great segments- feels empty, when the film- overloaded with visual flash (most of what you see is digital) and over-the-top gore- just drowns you in its’ immoral oasis, and what you see- the film is stark black-and-white with flashes of color (just as in Miller’s comics)- doesn’t make up for what you aren’t feeling. Not always, but all too often.
But then again, “Sin City” is- at its’ core- film noir, that darkest of cinematic crime genres which saw its’ peak in the ’40s and ’50s with films like “The Big Sleep,” “The Maltese Falcon,” and “Double Indemnity,” but has opened its’ doors to “new classics” like “Chinatown,” “Body Heat,” “L.A. Confidential,” and “The Usual Suspects.” “Sin City” is a collection of the genre’s basic archetypes- corrupt good guys, redemptive “bad guys,” voluptuous femme fatales, street justice over the law, and dark-as-night stories with a look and sound to match, starting and ending with brief scenes featuring Josh Hartnett as a salesman with a habit for killing lovely women. Unnecessary? Yes, not to mention hollow and too “knowingly” acted (grade for these scenes- D), but they serve as fitting bookends to Rodriguez’s and Miller’s descent into the mean streets of this noir universe, setting up the morality and violence we’re about to be witnesses to during the next two hours. Now, let’s look at each segment on its’ own (though you’ll see characters from other segments in each one), from best to worst, since that’s the best way I can think to approach this film.
“The Hard Goodbye” is the film’s first big story, and its’ best. Anchored by a spectacular comeback turn by cinematic heavy Mickey Rourke (who gives his narration of his story a gravity and grittiness the others lack later on), “Goodbye”- featuring brilliant, genre-twisting music by Graeme Revell (“The Crow”) and Rodriguez- is the story of Marv, a pill-popping nerve wreck parollee (with not the prettiest of faces) just out of jail when he meets a hooker named Goldie (Jamie King from “Bulletproof Monk”) who goes to bed with him, and winds up dead. Since she’s the first person who ever really was nice to him, and he knows he didn’t kill her, he takes it upon himself to find the killer and exact his own justice, all the while being chased by the cops after being framed for the crime. A sympathetic parole officer (Carla Gugino- the spy mom from Rodriguez’s kid-friendly “Spy Kids” flicks- graces the screen with the film’s most extensive scene of always-welcome gratuitous nudity) tries to help, but just ends up being caught by Kevin, the silent psycho who- in league with a corrupt cardinal- has been offing hookers, eating their flesh, and mounting their heads at his place. That alone makes Kevin one scary motherf*#%er; even scarier is the devious glee Elijah Wood- the embodiment of a good guy doing what’s right as Frodo in “Lord of the Rings”- appears to be taking in the sinuously vicious role. Marv and Kevin’s battle in the woods at the end is a gruesome emotional high point in the film that turns poetic when Marv finds peace in one last choice he makes in trying to do right by the only person who cared for him. If this story alone were the entire movie, it’d be a masterpiece. As the high point of an uneven whole, it stands above the rest. Either way, it holds its’ own against the best of noir. Grade for “The Hard Goodbye”- A+
“That Yellow Bastard”- with compelling music by Rodriguez, though not as complex or innovative as Revell’s- is the one people are going to go to see, since that’s the one the trailers play up the most. This is the one with Bruce Willis- demonstrating what an underrated actor he can be with the right material- as a cop named Hartigan, who’s an hour away from retirement when he’s forced into action when the twisted rapist son of a senator (Nick Stahl, clearly enjoying the dark side) takes another potential victim in 11-year old Nancy Callahan. He saves the girl, thinks he’s killed the son- he shot him a few times, including once in the “family jewels” (saying- with hard-boiled glee- “I take his weapons from him- both of them.”)- but is badly wounded, and blackmailed by the senator to serve jailtime for killing the son. He does so, if only to protect Nancy, who has promised to write him every week…and for the next eight years, she does. But then, the letters stop coming, and Hartigan thinks Nancy’s been discovered. What happens next I leave for you to find out, except to say that Hartigan- who also has a bad heart- gets out of jail, is anxious to protect Nancy (now eight years older and played by uber-hottie Jessica Alba) if it isn’t already too late, and the perverted senator’s son- now a foul-looking and smelling yellow demon (hence the name of the story)- catches up to both, allowing for a climax both satisfying for the characters and for the audience to watch. Though it- like the other segments- can be a bit on the nihilistic side in terms of violence, Willis- who’s not old enough to pass for the 60-plus the character is, but makes you buy his world-weary view of life- and Alba- who’s quite underrated as more of a “dream girl” than a character- strike a bond that’s palpable, even if it’s not the kind of bond either character thinks it is. Grade for “That Yellow Bastard”- A
“The Big Fat Kill” is the middle act of this three-act symphony of street-tough characters, morally simple stories, and blood-thirsty brutality…and it’s also the weakest of the major segments. It’s still interesting mind you, just not as compelling on an emotional level. This one is pure, unadulterated action and hard-boiled posturing, which isn’t a bad thing, but isn’t good enough to hold its’ own with the segments that bookend it. Scored with devious relish by John Debney (can you ask for a greater 180 from “The Passion of the Christ”) and Rodriguez, “Kill” stars Clive Owen- who just can’t help being a badass (I say again, if Brosnan’s not Bond, Owen needs to be) in his best performance since 2000’s “Croupier”- as Dwight, a system-smart street thug whose girl (Brittany Murphy, laying the biggest acting egg in the film) is getting harrassed by Jackie Boy (Benicio Del Toro, wearing makeup while still display slithery sleaze), who- Dwight learns- is a corrupt cop after he’s murdered by a gang of lethal and hot hookers- led by “The 25th Hour’s” Rosario Dawson and including a silent, vicious vixen assassin named Miho (Devon Aoki)- in Old Town. If the police were to find out, the tentative truce the cops and the gang have forged will be over, and the start of a war that will see losses on both sides. So it’s up to Dwight to get rid of Jackie Boy’s body before the cops find out, which isn’t as easy as it sounds when a) the body starts talking to you on the drive (this is the scene Tarantino directed) and b) mercenaries jump you before you can do the job. It’s cool stuff, but the story lacks the bite and bittersweet emotions of “Goodbye” and “Bastard,” and after Jackie Boy bites it, the story loses juice in terms of pacing and suspense as Dwight has to be the garbage man for the babes, and everything points to an inevitable showdown with the cops, lead by Michael Clarke Duncan. Owen and the composers make up for a lot, though. Grade for “The Big Fat Kill”- B-
So, to recap, “Sin City” is a film where parts are greater than the whole. Stick with what letsdown (the Josh Hartnett scene at the beginning, “The Big Fat Kill”) to have your ass handed to you by the gritty greatness of two pieces of pulp fiction that stand alongside the greatest of all noir cinema (“The Hard Goodbye,” “That Yellow Bastard”). You may not be as blown away as you were by those trailers, but with “Sin City,” Robert Rodriguez looks like a filmmaker full of surprises. Whether or not they’re pleasant is entirely up to the Texas wunderkind to show us what he’s really made of. During the best parts of “Sin City,” I think I saw what he’s made of, and I liked it.
