Film review - Sin City (18) (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Film review - Sin City (18)

Beauty is only sin deep. Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller's moody and stylish crime thriller, torn from the pages of Miller's acclaimed graphic novels, is a real looker.

Shooting the actors against green screens a la Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow, the filmmakers use digital trickery to jaw-dropping effect to create a startling, black-and-white noir aesthetic.

The gritty, rain-lashed sheen of the Sin City environs, captured so vividly in Miller's evocative illustrations, look sensational in three dimensions on the big screen.

This is truly the closest approximation yet of a celluloid comic book, with sporadic splashes of bright colour shimmering green eyes, lustrous red blood to contrast with the shadows and light of the hard-edged urban jungle.

Sin City melds three of Miller's stories into a single multi-stranded narrative.

Police officer John Hartigan (Willis) has just one hour left before he hangs his badge up for good.

With a "dodgy ticker" and an itchy trigger finger, Hartigan makes it his mission to go out with a bang literally by hunting down Roarke Jr (Nick Stahl), the murderous senator's son who has kidnapped an 11-year-old girl.

Across town, hard-nosed private investigator Dwight (Owen) comes face to face with demented thug Jackie Boy (Del Toro).

The two men clash over sexy waitress Shellie (Brittany Murphy) and Jackie heads out into the night in search of a little action, focussing his attentions on the working girls of Old Town.

Dwight follows close behind, determined to prevent Jackie Boy from hurting any of the ladies. But he needn't worry.

Gail (Rosario Dawson), the leader of Sin City's prostitutes, has the situation in hand.

One of Gail's friends, the heavenly Goldie (Jaime King) isn't so lucky.

She is murdered in her sleep by cannibalistic loner Kevin (Elijah Wood), who tries to pin the crime on the girl's last trick: hulking, down-on-his-luck bruiser Marv (Rourke).

Sure enough, the police attempt to arrest Marv but he refuses to go quietly, preferring to avenge Goldie's death even if that means sacrificing his own life.

There are few genuinely likeable or sympathetic players in Sin City the language of choice is violence and the film delivers a cornucopia of gore and splatter, including a DIY castration and dismemberment.

Great swathes of dialogue are lifted word for word from the books "There's wrong and there's wrong and there's THIS!" which sounds awkward tumbling out of the mouths of Willis and co.

"Walk down the right back alley in Sin City and you can find anything..." Marv informs us in voiceover. Except, it seems, heart and soul.

6/10

Stephen Webb