I think the main confusion for me was trying to figure out if that one abusive boyfriend guy was supposed to be Marv in the past, because they had similar builds and the voices were so close.
After a second viewing of this movie I’m feeling much more kindly disposed towards it than I was in the OP. While I still wish some of the dialogue had been tweaked to accomodate flesh and blood actors having to speak it - particularly for poor Michael Madsen, an actor whose work I normally enjoy but who seemed extremely uncomfortable here - I realized that the most troubling bits were more restricted than I initially felt.
Structurally, I think the biggest problem was the omission of a reference to the evens in A Dame to Kill For, the story which precedes The Big Fat Kill. As WonK rightly points out, the audience isn’t given a full sense of what debt Dwight owes the women of Old Town, and I’m sure some of the dialogue makes no sense without a cursory knowledge of the events there. I disagree that the audience needed to see in flashback what the women had endured before taking over that area of the city for themselves, because I think imagined horrors are the worst ones. Having some idea why Dwight flew into action, and the nature of his previous relationship with Gail, would have done a lot to improve the segment. As it was, I think there was enough information to put the pieces together, but just a little more fleshing out would have given the story a little more impact.
I rather liked the casting of Devon Aoki as Miho. While I would have preferred to see her move with more slippery grace (as I imagined from the comic), I think her rather soft, small figure plays as a perfect contrast to the hard, lean men who threaten Old Town. If the lesson of that sequence is not to take the women of Old Town at face value, then a Miho who isn’t obviously threatening makes a better contrast to the obviously dangerous Rafferty and his gang of thugs.
Likewise, I enjoyed the casting of Josh Hartnett as The Salesman in The Customer is Always Right for a similar reason: he does more to play against expectations. This preference may be a result of having not the short story on which this sequence was based, so I went into it as cold as someone who hasn’t read the comics. The beginning of the sequence plays as a swooning romantic moment, and for that reason, I think a younger, unthreatening character does more to misdirect the audience than an older, harder one would.
I haven’t read the stories in question, but wasn’t the audience supposed to believe
that her meeting with The Salesman at the end was a terminal encounter? I seem to recall in the comic she doesn’t survive the slaughter of Old Town so I’d be surprised to see her in a sequel. Am I wrong?
I liked the movie, stylistically great, but doesn’t anyone else think that Frank Miller is a fascist? That movie really creeped me out. The whole
“the enemy are inhuman monsters who deserve whatever torture we can inflict on them” philosophy is a bit extreme. Fun to watch, though. And of course don’t forget the “let’s protect the little girls from rapists, because secretly we want to have sex with them ourselves, when they are barely old enough, of course”, which is equally disturbing. Now that I think about it, what’s with the good-guys (or girls, in this case) throwing swastikas?
I loved this movie, and although I am a comic book fanatic, I’ve yet to read Sin City. As soon as I saw the trailer, I knew this was the movie for me – the gorgeous visual style, the hardboiled crime noir feel, the great cast. Everything in Sin City’s world is larger than life; street thugs talk like philosophers, the women are femme fatales or beautiful dames, the bad guys are really bad, and the violence is over-the-top.
Avumede, I must respectfully disagree with your take on Hartigan and Nancy.
Nancy views him as her savior. Her adolescent reverence of him has melded with her girl-crush. Hartigan gives in at first (because she’s a beautiful, desirable woman and because he’s been in solitary confinment for eight years) but then his conscience gets the best of him. In the end he has a very paternal concern for her.
Have you read Dark Knight Returns? Because yeah, I think Frank has some fascist tendencies.
I also found the Nancy/Hartigan thing disturbing for the reason you mentioned. One of the reasons I don’t like the comic books but like the movie is because, to me, the comic books seem to take everything very seriously, and the attraction in question is mega-oogy. In the movie, it just seems silly.
Re: Becky’s eyes
Except, I believe, the final scene, where the Salesman comes to do her in.
As to why the Salesman was in that final scene…
[spoiler]My assumption is that Sen. Roark (who I’m assuming originally payed her to betray the girls of Old Town) sent him to clean up some loose ends.
Oddly, she clearly knew that’s why he was there - look at the look on her face, and the quick ‘I love you’ and signing off to her mum.[/spoiler]
Speaking of eyes…
Rodrigues…or Miller…or both…made very good use of Woods’ eyes. The handful of scenes where we see them are the creepiest thing in the movie.
Chronology.
Hartigan’s story clearly takes place significantly before Marv’s because…
We see Marv alive, well, and uninjured, when Hartigan comes to the bar.
I did read the Dark Knight Returns, but did not read Sin City. Amazing how the material is so instantly recognizable as Frank Miller’s work. It’s not so much an impulse towards totalitarianism by any means, but more of an impulse towards fear-mongering and limitless vengeance. Watching Sin City, I can totally imagine a Frank Miller of 100 years ago taking part in a lynching, say. This may be an overreaction on my part, but, really, it’s not too different than the kind of stuff portrayed in Sin City.
I saw about an hour of it before I walked out.
It was a great visual style. I had high hopes, that’s why I stayed as long as I did.
But the acting was atrocious. Purposefully, it seemed. Michael Madsen’s lines couldn’t have been more wooden if someone had hit him with a 2 x 4.
The story telling was, well…they were just trying to throw too much action in for action’s sake.
I liked the movie - but I definitely noticed this. My god! Michael Madson is one of my favorite actors and he was TERRIBLE. They should have put a production assistant in a suit and put him in the movie - he would have been better by default.
I don’t know if Madson just can’t act in front of a blue screen - or he was doped up - or he was reading from a teleprompter - but it was the worst performance he’s ever turned in.
Just my two cents.
- Peter Wiggen