Sin City (DVD Review)

“She makes a Pez Dispenser out of him”

Yeah, I know. I keep coming back to this film. I've bagged it before. But now I've got my hot little hands on the Extended Version of DVD and thought I'd give it another chance.

The Customer Always Right
This was the test Rodriguez shot to convince Frank Miller to do the film. Sure it looks beautiful and I can understand why Miller fell for it, but once you get past the flashy visuals, it’s a slight, pointless story with some baaaad acting by Josh Hartnett. Let's move on.

That Yellow Bastard
The first thing that struck me about this episode was how terrible Michael Madsen was. I normally like his work, but he looked really uncomfortable and disinterested. Maybe he just couldn’t handle the green screen. Jessica Alba and Bruce Willis are solid though, and the highlight has to be Nick Stahl’s sick creepy turn as the Yellow Bastard. The edge lighting is much more apparent in this episode – especially on Willis’ face (to achieve this they had to shoot green screen so they could create an edge between the performers and the backgrounds); and the high definition of the photography picks out every crevice on Willis’ face. There’s some nice technique in this episode too – witness the jump cut when Willis pulls out his piece on the alley floor, the camera pan down Willis’ arm to his piece hanging out the car or the fast zoom in on Alba’s face driving the car. As I was watching this I suddenly remembered that Willis did a black and white episode of Moonlighting years ago and sure enough, on the commentary, Rodriguez makes mention of this. Overall, this is an ok episode, but not as good as the next two.

The Hard Goodbye
The cars in this movie are not cars. They’re like jet fighters the way they snarl across Sin City. In his commentary, Frank Miller expresses his desire that the cars never touch the ground. Mickey Rouke is the heart of this episode (and the movie as a whole really) and his narration tinged with irony, regret and sadness. Some of his line readings crack me up every time: especially the “and my mitts” at the end of his taking inventoory. Carla Gugino makes the most of her brief screentime, and with the exception of possibly Rosario Dawson, is the most compelling female character in the movie. The dialogue is classic Miller and Marv’s constant confusion, the Wendy/Goldie routine and the stealing of leather coats are nicely handled plot devices. The acting highlight of this episode is Marv’s confrontation with Cardinal Roarke (Rutger Hauer) and it’s quite astonishing to learn in the extras that the two actors never met. I must be desensitized to movie violence though as I didn’t find Kevin’s (Elijah Wood) come-uppance as all that graphic. They certainly cut to silhouette at the right moment.

The Big Fat Kill
This is probably my favorite episode for several reasons: the places the actor’s go to, the diabolical twists in the plot, Tarantino’s guest directing gig and overall, the best artistic technique.
Benecio Del Toro is crazed sleaze as Jackie Boy and he sells the comedy when he needs to, like when he chews his gun from his severed hand, slips on the same hand and falls on his ass on a ninja star. And his impression of the Wicked Witch Of The West is hysterical.
Clive Owen is a star, baby, and his Dwight just cements his reputation. Sorely under-appreciated in Mike Nichols’ Closer, he’s given the sort of hero shots in this episode that Rodriguez gave George Clooney in From Dusk Till Dawn.
I didn’t care much for Brittany Murphy’s Shellie, but Rosario Dawson is quite ferocious as Gail. Her feral battle cry as she mows down the gathered crims is something to see. “My valkyrie women – you’ll always be mine and never” as Dwight says.
Rodriguez’ technique is probably at it’s most playful in this episode. The roving camera in Shellie’s apartment, following shadows, the lighting change as Dwight flushes Jackie Boy’s head in the toilet. There’s more than a couple of Argento inspired moments in this episode, at the least when Dwight pulls a razor on Jackie Boy in the bathroom and at the most when Tarantino dials in different colors on Dwight and Jackie Boy’s head as they drive to the tar pits.
One of the few poor moments in this episode is when they pull out the ol’ surviving a bullet hit coz it hit the police badge instead (I’ve seen used as far back as 1935 in The 39 Steps for god’s sake). The final scenes in the alleyway are kinda clichéd and dumb - but enough has come before it that you kinda forgive them. “Out numbered, out gunned, but the alley is crooked and narrow”.

Extras
For a two disc set that includes two different versions on each disc, the supplements are considerable. The commentaries are very good (although the Rodriguez/Tarantino commentary has dead spots and there’s too much narrating of the onscreen action), but they drop a couple of whoppers: Rodriguez almost did a remake of Kiss Me Deadly in 1997 with Michael Mann producing prior to coming up with this concept; Tarantino was inspired by the lighting in Suspiria and Inferno for his scene; and Coppola came to watch them film on green screen witnessing electronic cinema at it’s finest and came away thinking “this was my dream for Zoetrope”.
All of the featurettes are interesting, especially the Green Version of the film (speed up to 800x) and of course, the Rodriguez Cooking School where he makes Breakfast Taco’s. It’s cool to learn that they used RoboCop guns in the film (don’t forget that Miller wrote Robocop 2 and a comic book version) and Crazy 88 swords (the prop master stole them from Quentin Tarantino’s garage) and I loved the fact that the Yellow Bastard was in fact, blue (so they could key the color off of him). All in all, this is a delectable set, and despite what I feel are some valid criticisms of some of the acting and clichéd nature of some of the plotting, this is one set I know will be getting a lot of action over the next few months. You can forgive these minuses when it’s such a bold, audacious flick.