SIN CITY

Bruce Willis, Michael Madsen, Mickey O'Rourke, Elijah Wood,
Nick Stahl, Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson, Benicio del Toro, Michael Clarke Duncan,
Brittany Murphy, Alexis Bledel, Josh Harnett

"Walk down the right back alley in Sin City and you can find anything."

The film adaptation of Frank Miller's comic book graphic stories about a town called Basin City. Sex, gore, graphic violence, merry assortment of (strange) characters, black and white effect, film noir genre, directed by Robert Rodriguez. I wasn't sure whether I would appreciate this sort of film because (a) I don't read comics (b) I read it was co-directed by Quentin Taratino. So it would be really violent. Well lo and behold, I found it quite interesting and it totally captured my attention.

I loved the black and white effect it masked the gory violent details like blood spurting and bodies being blown to bits and pieces. Thus it wasn't graphically repulsive. Certain dialogue was really lame and sounded like it came right out of the comic pages which naturally it did. Duh! The scenes are well edited and the story was free flowing. The plot was engaging so despite the fact that it was peppered with a lot of characters it wasn't hard to follow at all.

By nature I am very squeamish when I watch blood spurting or bodies being blown apart with bullets but "Sin City" didn't repel me at all. I guess I'm pretty much stoic now that I can tune off violence on the screen. Just the occasional ewww or I'd gasp whenever someone was blown to pieces. But I didn't get too emotional and freak out about it. All the actors fit their parts to a T. I actually saw them as their characters not as actors portraying their roles, if that makes any sense. I like the film noir aspect of it just like those old black and white (Humphrey) Bogart movies about unscrupulous criminal elements albeit sans the graphic violence. I also like films where there is an ongoing narration being spewed by the characters it makes it all the more comprehensible to follow.

I found it interesting and appreciated the fact that it was a different genre and that it was filmed digitally which is a technique I've rarely seen in other films. Not the usual Hollywood fare of John Woo and Jerry Bruckheimer car chases and really loud sound effects which masquerade the fact that it doesn't have a solid plot to sustain the movie. But having said that I don't think I would now go out and rent all those comic book based movies, once in a while it is highly entertaining but too much of it would ruin the experience for me. I'm glad though that "Sin City" was a good film for me to appreciate this genre.