Broken Frontier

A beautiful woman stands on a rain-washed balcony, her lips as scarlet as the slinky dress that clings to her body. A handsome gentleman holds her in his arms and professes his love, punctuating the emotion with a gunshot through her heart. He holds her bleeding form until she expires, another victim of the endless night.

Welcome to Basin City or, as the locals have scornfully dubbed it, Sin City. Adapted from Frank Miller’s crime graphic novels, Sin City brings the sensibilities of 1950s film noir to brilliant life in the 21st century. Director Robert Rodriguez takes this film a step further than most comics adaptations by giving co-director credit to Miller himself (not to mention “guest director” Quentin Tarantino). The result is a film that matches the style and tone of its source material exactly and gives Sin City’s creator a hands-on approach. From the opening shot on, we are plunged into a highly stylized world of black and white with thematic splashes of color (spurts of red blood, haunting blue eyes, etc.), a city filled with tough guy anti-heroes, dangerous dames, and gory, unrelenting violence.

The film is split into three interconnected vignettes, each story spilling into the other. The first centers on the noble Hartigan (Bruce Willis), perhaps the only honest cop in Sin City, as he attempts to save an eleven-year-old girl from a monstrous rapist (Nick Stahl). From there, we segue to the story of Marv (Mickey Rourke, in one of the film’s best performances), an unstoppable, thuggish behemoth hell-bent on avenging the only woman who ever showed him kindness. The film then switches to the perspective of Dwight (Clive Owen), whose conflict with a crooked cop (Benicio del Toro) threatens to escalate to full scale gang war between the police, the Mob, and the hookers of Old Town. We come full circle to the end of Hartigan’s tale as he must defend the now grown-up girl (Jessica Alba) from “That Yellow Bastard” (fans will hardly recognize Stahl after his metamorphosis into a deformed canary-colored gnome in this segment).

Sin City’s kinetic storytelling and over-the-top violence grabs the audience by the scruff of their necks and takes them on an exhilarating thrill ride from start to finish. The innovative use of color against the stark black and white images gives the movie an incredible and artistic look that’s like no film I’ve ever seen. As most of the sets were created wholesale on the computer (ala Sky Captain), the city’s dark and gritty locales have a gorgeous and surreal look to them. Drawing from noir traditions as it is, the world of the film seems instantly familiar yet slightly “off” at the same time. This is a heightened reality that doesn’t do anything by halves. It goes for the cinematic jugular, creating jaw-dropping images and sending body parts and blood flying in every direction.

Along with fine performances by the leads, the film is populated by an astounding cast turning in excellent work, including Rosario Dawson, Rutger Hauer, Carla Gugino, Michael Clarke Duncan, Elijah Wood, Josh Hartnett, Brittany Murphy and Alexis Bledel. Even Frank Miller himself gets a little screen time as a corrupt priest. Many of the actors show quite a bit of range by playing against type, like the normally sweet and innocent Bledel as a treacherous prostitute and doe-eyed hobbit Wood as a supremely creepy cannibal. Between this film and Batman Begins, I’m amazed by the high caliber actors that are being attracted to comics films and I hope the trend continues.

Make no mistake; Sin City is not for the squeamish. The violence is in-your-face and unrepentant and there are few characters with any redeeming qualities. But my God: what a ride.

- Eric Lindberg