The plot lines are simple, three stories, all revolving around the corrupt goings on in the fictional Basin City. One has a cop trying to protect a young girl from a politically connected sexual predator, another involves a big lug searching for the killer of a hooker who was kind to him for a night, and the third deals with an incident that leads to a potential turf war between cops and crooks.

The cop is played in a beautifully understated way by Bruce Willis, not unlike his quirky role in ‘Pulp Fiction’. In trying to save a young girl from the clutches of the predator, he runs afoul of city politics and ends up railroaded for his efforts. Speaking of ‘Pulp Fiction’, Quentin Tarantino is listed in the credits as ‘guest director’ but not specifically attached to any particular storyline. His presence is felt however, in the look and feel of the film, as well as the non-linear plot sequences that he pioneered in ‘Pulp Fiction.’

The second story, ‘Marv’, centers around a big beefy pumped up guy played hilariously by Mickey Rourke, who in my mind, steals the show with this segment. Under tons of make-up and sounding like something right out of a cheap 40s detective novel, Rourke, whose acting abilities I’ve been lukewarm about in the past, is used to great comedic effect and truly seems to revel in the role. Marv, a resident of Basin City, has spent the night with a hooker named Goldie and awakens to find her murdered. He vows to avenge her – she was the only one who was kind to him – and sets out, encountering a lot of resistance that he handles in very visually entertaining ways.

The third plot revolves around a mysterious fellow named Dwight (Clive Owen) who stumbles into helping a woman being bullied and tormented by a former boyfriend named ‘Jackie Boy’, played by a decidedly twisted Benicio Del Toro. In what has to be the most surreal sequence of the lot, Dwight ends up helping a group of hookers, who are dressed in extreme dominatrix get-up, inadvertently touching off a spark that threatens to up-end a fragile truce between the cops and hustlers in this section of town and setting the stage for a potentially major bloodbath. I won’t go further in revealing what happens later but Del Toro ends up playing probably the strangest role in his career to date.

Miller, who took over drawing the ‘Daredevil’ superhero in 1979, at Marvel Comics, attracting attention there, ending up moving on to the classic ‘Batman’ character that he took over in 1986, and whose character he re-invented in ‘ the Dark Knight’ series, giving Batman a whole new tormented darker psychological profile and deepening the plot lines. His ‘Sin City’ has gone further in terms of darkness and existential story line, examining the often corrupt, urban landscape using totally modern graphics and drawing techniques while still retaining elements of earlier styles.

His imagery and plot lines are fairly obvious in the cheap pop psychology sense but that’s comic books for you – their beauty is the simple and uncluttered way they portray their angst and unrequited sexuality and violence. This is truly a good looking film and along with capturing the particular and specific art of the comic book, it also manages to catch the humour and whimsy.

Marc Goldin currently lives in Chicago, with three cats, each one more long-haired than the last. Interests have ranged from medieval monasticism to discontinued stations on the London Underground – literary likes too diverse (some would say schizo) to list here although the last several years have been witness to an intimacy with Scottish and Irish literature. American Southern and Beat era lit also account for some of the ‘missing years’. Music tastes run the gamut from Cuban Danzon to Ska (all three waves but having a specific attachment to the second, two-tone period) to the Tuvan throat singers. Has written book reviews for a now defunct Irish literature site and has several short stories in various stages of development. Mad for black and white photography and aspires to someday have a complete collection of photos documenting every close in the Grassmarket area of Edinburgh. Works in the IT dept. of a French company in the current political climate. In football, supports Chelsea, Hibs, and for the sake of employment security, Marseille.

© 2005 Laura Hird All rights reserved.