Movie review: Sin city (2005), Robert Rodriguez

A bad, but unresistable dream.

This very special movie, made for our senses, is based on various graphic novels by Frank Miller. There is a lot of black and white in the movie but when blood flows and sexy women show up, it are usually in red. In the beginning a woman stands on the balcony overlooking the city, when a man comes in to her tells her that he loves her and later on kills her. This kind of unexpected violence is a good intro in this movie.

The story was not completely clear to me but it was fascinating to watch: the surroudings of the huge buildings in the fictional city, the babes, the animations. The persons look at pictures in a graphic novel. Especially the kind of iron man Marv, who cannot die is a wonderful caracter.

One of the stories is about John Hartigan, a detective with angina pectoris, who goes home early, because his partner Bob says Eileen is waiting for him. On his way he rescues Nancy Callahan out of the hands of Roark Jr. Hartigan kills two persons but then suffocates. Later on in the movie we see him again. 

Another story is about superman Marv who is having agood time in bed with hooker Goldie, who was afraid and needed protection. After three hours of love making she dies. Marv is desperate and wants to take revenge. The murderer will have to do penance, he says. It takes him a long way to find the murderer. Hooker Lucille gives him pills, a priest tells him to go to a farm between Cross and Lennox, where Kevin, a serial killer, lives. Kevin is faster than Marv. Lucille, who is in prison with Marv, tells him that Kevin eats people and hangs their heads on the wall. Marv, with numerous plasters on his face, escapes and starts to kill. ‘I ve got a condition,’ he says, ‘I get sick without pills.’

Later on Marv fears he is hallucinating, when he sees Goldie shooting, but it turns out to be her twin sister Wendy. They get along and work together. Wendy goes with him to Kevin, but Marv doesn’t want her to see the fight and brings her to a safe adress. He kills  Kevin, let the dog eat his intestines and brings the head of Kelvin to Roark, but get seriously injured in a fight, needs medical surgery and gets beaten up by the police, because they accuse him of killing girls.

Wendy visits him in jail. He likes her smell. ‘You may call me Goldie,’ she says. Later on they put Marv on the electric chair and have a hard time killing him.

A third story is about Shellie, who doesn’t want open the door for Jackie boy. She tells him to get lost. Her friend Dwight is with her and hides when she finally opens the door.

Jackie and his friends come in. Jackie wants her to go out with them. He smells another man and hits her but she doesn’t give in. Dwight appears and puts the head of Jackie in the toilet for a long time, so Jackie and his mates decide to leave.

Dwight chases them in his car in order to stop them killing someone else. They go to the Old Town, where hookers rule, with Miho as their leader. Jackie invites one a them in his car, but she doesn’t want to. Miho kills Jack and his mates after playing with him as a cat with mice. Jackie turned out to be a cop and the cops had an agreemanet with the girls and now it’s gonna be war. Dwight wants a car to bring dead bodies away to the tarpit and gets one. Jackie sits next to him because there is no space in the trunk and comes to life again. A motorpoliceman pulls the car over, guesses that Dwights friend drunk too much and gives him a warning. Just before Dwight gets to the tarpit, the car runs out of petrol.

It is nice to see Hartigan again, although he is in the hospital after heartsurgery.

He gets visited by Roark and by Nancy. She writes to him in jail under the name Cordelia. The police wants a confession from Hartigan. After eight years he doesn’t receive letters from Nancy anymore, who is now nineteen years old. Hartigan fears she has forgotten him, till he gets an envelop with her finger in it. He agrees he is a child molester and is set free.

Eileen married someone else, his former partner Bob says. Hartigan is looking for Nancy. He sees matches from Kadie’s. Nancy dances on the stage. She runs to Hartigan when he visits the nightclub. They get out of there. Nancy drives. Under the seat is a gun. Nancy says she has been thinking of him all the time.

The yellow bastard, the son of raork, a Ghandi like figure, attacks him. Hartigan takes a look to see if he is dead. In a motel the creep looks at them. Nancy says she wants to sleep with Hartigan, but he says he is too old for her. He takes a cold shower and is attacked by the creep again.

Don’t scream, Nancy, he says, while hanging on a rope from the ceiling. He finally reaches the window and breaks the rope with the glass. He goes to Roark but his heart fails. Roark slams Nancy with a whip, Hartigan gets shot. Roark tries to kill Hartigan, but the last one stabs him for eight long years in prison. Nancy helps him to get up and is glad she didn’t scream. Thanks for saving my life, she says. Roark is in jail where he belongs.

This is a uncomplete resume of the most important facts. It is all about a passion for sex and violence. Women usually are toys, but there is also love, like the love of Nancy for Hartigan, the love of Marv for Goldie. It’s about super people who never can die, Marv in the first place. There is also humor in it, like in case of a man with an arrow through his belly and later on through his head, who is wondering what happened to him.

Sin city turns out to be a bad dream, a nightmare, in which people who are dead turn out to be alive again, problems that seemed to be solved start all over again. Sin city is a classic cult movie because of the special way of filming, in a very usual but surprising and unresistable style.