"Ultraviolence" gets a whole new definition

Filled with brutal beatings and shootings, cannibalism, multiple castrations, and one case where a character “Didn’t so much cut his head off as turn him into a giant Pez dispenser,” Sin City is not your typical feel-good comic book movie.  Based (very accurately, apparently) on Frank Miller’s graphic novels of the same name, this is film noir at its nastiest, with antiheroes, corruption, and betrayal aplenty.

I half expected to see Snake Plissken drop in, fresh out of escaping from New York, but somehow he seems like too optimistic a character for this movie.  Cloaked in perpetual darkness, Sin City is filled with crooked politicians, police, and clergy (including a short appearance by Frank Miller as a confessor) who run the town.  Except for Old Town, which is run by prostitutes (who are no less lethal).  Here, connections count for far more than truth, and lies run the world.

Our story, if there is really one coherent story, begins with John Hartigan (Bruce Willis), a cop dying of a heart condition but bent on saving a kidnapped girl from the sadist son of a powerful senator.  Marv (Mickey Rourke) is a behemoth of a man framed for murder and caught up in plans more sinister than he can imagine.  Dwight (Clive Owen) is a murderer in hiding who starts out by defending his girlfriend from a group of thugs, but is soon embroiled in events that threaten the truce between the prostitutes and the police.

For those of us who can stomach the violence or enjoy graphic novels and comic books, Sin City is likely to become a cult classic.  The majority of the film is shot in black and white, with only reds showing through (and with all the blood flying around there is a lot of red), and the special effects do the original work proud in bringing it to life.  Sin City is extremely fast-paced, especially with a run time of longer than two hours.  Though Hartigan’s is the main story, Marv is the character closest to a superhero, albeit a very homicidal one.  He crashes through car windows without blinking, throws people through the air, and has a skull that is apparently unbreakable.  After dragging a would-be informant across the pavement while driving, he explains to some prostitutes that he’s been framed and “I’ve been killing my way to the truth ever since.”  Boring is one thing that Sin City is not.

Are there plot holes?  Absolutely.  But this is not some formulaic action flick where the good guys always come out on top.  Sin City’s mood is bleak to the point of hopelessness; we don’t actually think our (anti)heroes will set things right, we just hope they’ll kill most of the bad guys.  As mindless as all this violence may seem (especially with Marv, who prefers his fists or a good hatchet to guns), one has to wonder about Miller’s motives.  Is an exciting movie the whole point, or is he saying something about our own society’s corrupt values via his antiheroes and villains?  Given two screenwriters and three directors (Miller is credited on both counts), it’s hard to tell.

Film Rating: êêêê  (out of 5)