Walk down the right back alley in Sin City and you can find anything.
Distributed by
Touchstone Home Video
DVD: Limited Edition Boxset:
Cert:
Cat.no: BUA 0003401
Running time: 119 minutes
Year: 2005
Pressing: 2005
Region(s): 2, PAL
Chapters: 28 plus extras
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Languages: English, Italian
Subtitles: English for the hearing-impaired
Widescreen: 1.85:1
16:9-Enhanced: Yes
Macrovision: Yes
Disc Format: DVD 9
Price: £19.99
Extras:
Behind the Scenes featurette, Audio Descriptive track
Director:
Frank Miller & Robert Rodriguez
(Rodriguez: The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D, Desperado, El Mariachi, The Faculty, Four Rooms, From Dusk Till Dawn, Grind House, Once Upon a Time In Mexico, Sin City 1 & 2, Spy Kids 1-3)
Special Guest Director:
Quentin Tarantino
(Four Rooms, Grind House, Inglorious Bastards, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill Vols 1 & 2, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Sin City, TV: ER, CSI)
Producer:
Elizabeth Avellan
Screenplay:
Frank Miller
Music:
John Debney, Graeme Revell & Robert Rodriguez
Cast:
Nancy: Jessica Alba
Miho: Devon Aoki
Becky: Alexis Biedel
Senator Roark: Powers Boothe
Liebowitz: Jude Ciccolella
Gail: Rosario Dawson
Jackie Boy: Benicio Del Toro
Manute: Michael Clarke Duncan
Lucille: Carla Gugino
The Man: Josh Hartnett
Cardinal Roark: Rutger Hauer
Goldie/Wendy: Jaime King
Bob: Michael Madsen
Priest: Frank Miller
Shellie: Brittany Murphy
Tammy: Lisa Marie Newmyer
Dwight: Clive Owen
Marv: Mickey Rourke
Roark Jr/Yellow Bastard: Nick Stahl
Nancy, age 11: Makenzie Vega
Dallas: Patricia Vonne
Hartigan: Bruce Willis
Kevin: Elijah Wood
I was massively impressed when I first saw clips of Sin City
as it gave an effective comic-book look to the image, and seeing that it's taking three stories from
Frank Miller's graphic novels then it sounds like the right way to go about it, which it is but there's
a but...
Sin City tells three stories, which intermingle slightly but not in any major way that holds
the plot together - we're not exactly talking
Magnolia
here. Without spoiling the plot too much, the first tells about hard-done-by world-weary cop John
Hartigan (Bruce Willis, right) who is due to retire but still has time to take on the case of rescuing
a kidnapped, 11-year-old girl called Nancy. After a period of years pass, she's transformed into a bar-top
dancer played by the achingly-gorgeous Jessica Alba, who appears in all three pictures in this review,
the last one of which isn't from the film, but who cares. I won't divulge what happens, but theirs is a
relationship that's set to transcend all others.
The second story features Marv (Mickey Rourke), who is someone with facial features that you wouldn't
bestow on anyone but when he's framed for a murder he didn't commit, the victim of which, Goldie (Jaime
King), he happens to wake up next to, he must go on the run in a bid to clear his name with the help
of lesbian parole officer Lucille (the stunning Carla Gugino).
Story three starts with waitress
Shellie (Brittany Murphy being hassled by drugged-up Jackie Boy (Benicio Del Toro) and his
associates, but as her boyfriend Dwight (Clive Owen with an iffy American accent) goes off to track
him down and finish them off the ramifications of this are more than he can handle alone and results in a
showdown in Old Towne between the authorities and him together with a group of hookers who run the district,
led by Gail (Rosario Dawson).
All three stories are located within Basin City, hence it's the truncated name which gives the movie its
title.
On the plus side, this movie, shot in 1.85:1 with digital video cameras with all the backgrounds
pasted in after filming and presented here in anamorphic widescreen, has fantastic picture
composition throughout for the uncompromising subject matter. It's outstanding the way this movie is made
to look like the original comic book, having been filmed in black and white, with some colour such as
red for blood and lipstick and yellow for the eponymous 'Yellow Bastard'.
Soundwise, while all the sound FX are brilliantly clear and the dialogue is faultless, this DVD is still
missing the DTS 5.1 soundtrack in favour of an Italian DD5.1 and an English audio-descriptive track.
Listen, Buena Vista, DTS is better than DD, so if the DTS soundtrack exists - take it!
On the downside about this film, like the
Chronicles of Riddick
movie where I'd rather have been playing the
game
- this film also looks more like a game that should be played instead of watched as it just cries out
to be interactive. Also, the stories don't quite pan out within their time as they should since it's a
largely a case of style over substance so you start to get a bit bored after a while and realise after
each part has completed that there wasn't an awful lot to it in the first place.
There's an overly large cast so not all of the actors have the same impact they should have on a project
like this and it can be a little too self-righteous as if the characters have nothing else in their lives
to think about - e.g. Marv about Goldie; and Hartigan about Nancy.
Sin City is, audio/visually, still a very appealing way of spending a couple of hours so I'd
definitely recommend a rental. I'd also like Robert Rodriguez to consider making a movie out of the
Max Payne
computer game character, an experience which had a similar visual feel inbetween the action. Then again,
I'd probably be back whinging about the fact I couldn't jump in and play it...
Extras-wise, sadly this DVD is distinctly lacking. Aside from the aforementioned audio descriptive track
there's just an 8-minute Behind the Scenes featurette including a number of soundbites from cast and
crew. Surely there's more they could've included here? Given the way it was shot, a paltry 8-minutes about
it is an insult.
To conclude, the subtitles are in English only - and their usage makes this movie look even more like a
comic book. There are 28 chapters which is a decent amount for this movie's length, and the menus are
done to suit the movie's style with a small piece of audio/video repeated.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
DVD: 
I was massively impressed when I first saw clips of Sin City
as it gave an effective comic-book look to the image, and seeing that it's taking three stories from
Frank Miller's graphic novels then it sounds like the right way to go about it, which it is but there's
a but...
Story three starts with waitress
Shellie (Brittany Murphy being hassled by drugged-up Jackie Boy (Benicio Del Toro) and his
associates, but as her boyfriend Dwight (Clive Owen with an iffy American accent) goes off to track
him down and finish them off the ramifications of this are more than he can handle alone and results in a
showdown in Old Towne between the authorities and him together with a group of hookers who run the district,
led by Gail (Rosario Dawson).
On the downside about this film, like the