United States, 2005Cast: Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson, Jamie King, Brittany Murphy, Benicio Del Toro, Nick Stahl, Elijah Wood, Michael Clarke Duncan
Director: Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller, Quentin Tarantino ("special guest director")
My Rating: **** / ****
Finally, after several months waiting in vain for this movie to get aired on local theatres, i get ahold of viewing this nasty, probably the most violent movie that i ever witnessed in the last couple-of-years. Not in the theater though, since - understandably - the censorship won't allowed for this kind movie to get aired. Well, all for the good reasons. For i think, it was a Sin to cut this movie from the Mr.Rodriguez' original "shot and cut".
I've anticipated this movie from the beginning of the year. The star-packed casts, some of which my personal favourites (Mr.Willis, Mr.Owen, Mr.Del Toro), an eccentric director, the story it based upon, and never the least, the sort of publications which this movie had received (for example, Mr.Rodriguez resigned himself from DGA to settle over dispute with DGA - Director Guild Association - about Mr.Miller's credit as co-director). All the more reason to wait for this movie which widely-known even before it was officially released was that it going to be shot in black-and-white.
The movie was shot in black-and-white alright. But not entirely so, since there are some solid colors sprayed here-and-there, the red dress of a whore, the blood, Becky's blue eyes, Goldie's golden hair, Junior's yellow skin, and so forth. But even though the gray, black-and-white colors were dominant, the feels of watching it won't be the same as watching the movies which colors were not yet invented to invade silver screen thanks to the kinetic cinema-works and - i dont know how to exactly pin-point the fact - a modern feeling that flows from it.
Sin City was based upon a graphic-novel - a most likely used term to name a single-story comic book, in order to increase its degree of importance - by Frank Miller with the same title. To be more precise, it based upon three of the series. "Sin City", "Big Fat Kill", and "The Yellow Bastard" with an addition of excerpt from "The Customer Always Right" with Mr.Hartnett as The Man that took forty seconds of the opening and the ending sequence. But the main story was based upon the first three titles i mentioned.
My favourite story of the three was the one that based upon "Sin City" which told a mis-shapen, bulky, and ugly 'monster' named Marv (Mr.Rourke). Mr.Marv had known more than enough hate and dis-respect during his life - also amplified by the comment made by Dwight (Mr.Owen) - that when Goldie (Ms.King), a red-hot porstitute (in Sin City, there are very limited options of job for young girls) came to him with (almost) genuine kindness and respect, Marv felt like he has been touched by an angel. Until when he wakes up, to found her body laid death beside him. Knowing that somebody had framed him, he pursues anybody who had responsible for it. To get even, and perhaps to make a profit out of it. His pursues end to Kevin (Mr.Wood), a maniacal cannibal, an effective killing-machine, swift and silently deadly, and also had a mis-directed faith toward certain religion. The show-down between the two was i think the best during the film. With result in utterly horrifying moment in which Marv told us in narrative voice-over, "He never screams". I guarantee that you'd never seen Frodo Baggins represented in Mr.Wood's character not even on a fraction of seconds during this movie. And that was a testimony on how good Mr.Rodriguez did to this movie.
The second story was about a guy, Dwight, he had something in his past, something wrong that urges him to change his appearance with plastic-surgery (rumor had it that the story of what been wrong that urges him to undergo a plastic-surgery will be told in "Sin City 2" which scheduled to begin filming on January 2006). He tried to settled down by dating a quite-'normal' bartender, ... (Ms.Murphy) but only to cross-path with abusive, violent, and killing-tendency (or so he had thought of him) ex-boyfriend, Jackie Boy (Mr.Del Toro). To make long story short, Dwight ended-up chasing Jackie Boy as far as to the district where police nor mob dared to enter, Old City. The police, and the mob had a mutual agreement with the local prostitutes, led by Dwight's girl-friend, Gail (Mrs.Dawson) who ran things on Old City. But soon, the tides of event bring the local prostitutes' reign of Old City, and Gail's life, to an end. Now, Dwight had to save Gail (for his own reasons) by merely made a "Bif Fat Kill".
The third story, which involves one character to become a center of all the mishaps on this two-hours-ten-minutes flick, Nancy (Ms.Alba), had a time-span of eight years. It began as the movie began and ended as the movie ended. Even though not necessarily in chronological term. Hartigan (Mr.Willis) was probably the last really good-cop in the City. On the eve of his very last day as a cop, he badly injured Junior (Mr.Stahl), a phedophile, who happens to be the son of the senator that had its power clawed deep in the city, in order to save an 11-years old girl, Nancy. Hartigan was eventually framed for the crime done by Junior and served in jail unless he signed a confession about his 'crime'. Only one thing kept him sane (and away from signing the confession), a letter sent by Nancy (under the agreed pen-name 'Dorothy') every Thursday for eight years. In the other hand, Junior who wants Nancy in order to get even with Hartigan and as a payback for what he had done to him, desperately wanted to 'pleased' her. And so, after he suspected that Dorothy was perhaps this Nancy, he kept her letters, and left Hartigan wondering on her safety and all. Until one day, two months after the letters from Nancy 'stopped', Hartigan signed for the confession and released. Naturally, the first thing he did, was to look for Nancy. But when he had found her, he knows (for a little bit too late) that a trap has been set, and he had entered it. For Junior has intended to let him free in order to led him to Nancy.
On the first several minutes, i felt rather disturbed with the way Mr.Rodriguez literally translates every box of the comic to screen. All with stylish characters, long-coat that flapping like bat-wings every time the characters ran, constant gloom of midnight, and often rain, voice-overs, and of-course the black and white of the pictures. But, when Mr.Rodriguez had constantly fed the picture in the same manners, all the disturbance feeling was rather gone, to be replaced by absorbance and vividly horrid images of Sin City. I found myself totally sucked in its atmosphere. It was just like reading a comic book. Thus, it made Sin City the best adaptation of comic book so far as i can recall.
And i just simply love the way the movie doesn't get half-heartedly to display such brutality, all kind of dismemberments, breasts, and probably every thing that deserves R rating from MPAA ever imagined (no sex-scene in this movie though). The fact that the gore displayed in a two-tone color didn't soften the effect of it, on some scene it did so well, that in spite of soften, it emphasizes the horror, that i could still remember the horror left by it (for instance, Kevin's (Mr.Wood) last moment). That was freaky. Really freaky.
Even with the tight-packed star cast, this movie doesn't suffer from the "star-spotlight-cast" which desperately tried to shove up one character due to his / her star-ness. It was all thanks to Mr.Miller. As this movie was shot directly based on the comic that he had wrote, no stars, or characters had an attention more than he / she should have. And it sums up to a very enjoyable experience in cinema.. if you able to withstand the violence, that is.
My personal favourite characters are Kevin (Mr.Wood) and Miho (Ms.Aoki). Both characters never speaks, and both characters were actively involved in the ugliest disrememberment events depicted on the film. Like, when Dwight says to Miho that the bodies won't fit in his trunk so she had to do the knife-work ("Yesshhh", said Gail with disgust), or of course, when Kevin stares Marv in the eye with his wicked smile during the very last seconds of his life. Damn.. that scene haunted me. Even now. It gave chills to my spine.. brrr...
This movie currently on top of my shorlist of 'Best Movie of 2005', surpasses the recently #1, 'Batman Begins'.