Sin City moves you in a visual and gut wrenching way. The narratives immediately draw you in. The darkness of the scenes establishes a world where there is no hope and no light. It is as if daylight never comes. You are thrown back in Hollywood's past and any moment, Humphrey Bogert moves out of the fog in his trench coat. Sin City is a combination of visual stimulation combined with 1940’s cop, robbers, dames and tough guys. Think The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep. The action in both of these Bogart’s classic happens at night. The main characters only work in the moonlight and you never see the sun rise. Sin City is exactly like that. Everything happens at night and away from the light of day.
Sin City combines three interlocking stories from Frank Miller’s Sin City Graphic Novel. And you are not really sure who are the good guys and who are not. Benicio De Toro is a hero cop who really is nothing but a corrupt thug and Clive Owen is a good guy with a mysterious past. Owen’s girl friend is the queen hooker played by Rosario Dawson, who runs old town. The confrontation between De Toro with both Owen and Dawson sets the stage for a larger confrontation between the city cops and the hookers over control of Old town manipulated by outside sources. In this segment, the good guys and bad guys shift roles, as those with the badge are not really interested in protecting the public.
In his segment, Bruce Willis plays a cop about to retire. In his last case, he confronts a nasty pedophile, who is the son of a powerful senator. Willis is the good cop but he confronts a system of corruption that protects the guilty as the expense of the innocent.
Sin City spares no one as not only are the politicians and cops corrupt but so are the church leaders and oh yeah, there is little cannibalism thrown in. Throughout the movie, the guys wear trench coats and the ladies wear G-string. Old fashion sexism but somehow you are not offended as the women are as strong as the guys they deal with. Sex and violence overlaps with nihilism as the good guys are flawed and the bad guys are just evil. We are left with nothing to hold on to, as it is merely Darwinian survival of the fittest.
Article comments
1 - Phillip Winn
Are you saying that there are good guys in Sin City? 'Cause I missed 'em. Some of the bad guys are more noble than others, sure, but they're all bad.
2 - cutty kev
what is the meaning of the end where becky and that guy meet in the elevator
3 - Bob A. Booey
I like this movie, but the neon yellow technicolor Muppet bad guy was a little silly to me, especially in the commercials they have out now for the DVD.
That is all.