'Sin City's' a sinfully delicious cinema extravaganza

By Jack Garner
Gannett News Service

SIN CITY (Rated R) Four Stars (Excellent) A stylized, neo-noir anthology of three heightened crime tales, based on the cult-hit graphic novels of Frank Miller, and filmed in authentic comic-book style by co-directors Miller and Robert Rodriguez. Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke and Clive Owen star. Dimension Films, 126 minutes.

You'll see them in high-contrast black and white, lurking in the shadows, or jumping out at you with guns blazing and knives flashing. In "Sin City," you'll find nearly every type of lowlife character who ever inhabited a film noir movie or a hard-boiled detective story, and you'll hear tough-as-nails narration telling the story in the heightened language of the pulp world.

As Marv says, emphatically, "There is no settling down! This is blood for blood and by the gallons. This is the old days, the bad days, the all or nothing days. They're back!"

That is the point of "Sin City," the neo-noir graphic novels of Frank Miller, with their gritty comic-book imagery now faithfully rendered in a red-hot movie co-directed by Miller and Robert Rodriguez.

Quentin Tarantino also reportedly showed up to visit his friends one day and helped with a few scenes. (You'll note an unusual "guest director" credit.)

It figures to be the next sensation for filmgoers who like their movies aggressive, violent, and imaginative. If you've been waiting a long time for the next in-your-face sensation in the "Pulp Fiction" tradition, check out "Sin City."

Like "Pulp Fiction," "Sin City" entangles three tales within its narrative:

• An aged cop Hartigan (Bruce Willis), only hours from retirement, tries to save an 11-year-old girl from the sicko pedophile son of a corrupt senator.
• Private investigator Dwight (Clive Owen) strives to protect his friends who happened to be "Sin City's" hookers. They're threatened because a cop has been killed in their neighborhood.
• And in the third — and best — tale, homely, roughhewn Marv (an almost unrecognizable Mickey Rourke) has come to expect women to be repelled by his harsh looks. So, when a woman (a hooker) finally treats him sweetly, Marv is touched. When she's murdered, he seeks big-time revenge. (That's when he talks about gallons of blood.)

Miller and Rodriguez have adapted "Sin City" from three tales in the comic book series — "The Hard Goodbye," "The Big Fat Kill" and "That Yellow Bastard." Miller initially resisted their conversion to the screen until Rodriguez (of "Spy Kids" and "From Dusk Till Dawn" fame) proved the transition could remain faithful to the quirky cult books.

As a result, the distinctive imagery of the graphic novels has been faithfully recreated on the screen, thanks to digital wizardry. Every scene in the film matches panels in the comic books, as does the look of each character. Like "The Polar Express," "Sin City" meticulously recreates visuals from another medium and makes them work on film.

And, like the comic books, "Sin City" is mostly black and white, except for few startling moments of color, like a red dress or a yellow face.

Once you see the violence of "Sin City," you'll be glad for the lack of color — if it were shot realistically most people probably couldn't handle the film's off-the-wall gore. But, being stylized, it takes on the aura of dark fantasy. And the large cast — also including Jessica Alba, Michael Madsen, Rosario Dawson, Elijah Wood, Nick Stahl, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Benicio Del Toro — make themselves at home in Miller's perverse and imaginative alternate universe.

Rated R, with extremely strong violence, profanity, nudity, sex.