Image Courtesy of Amazon.com
Director :
Frank Miller
Robert Rodriguez
Quentin Tarantino (special guest director)
Cast :
Jessica Alba……….Nancy Callahan
Rosario Dawson……….Gail
Elijah Wood……….Kevin
Bruce Willis……….John Hartigan
Benicio Del Toro……….Jack Rafferty
Jaime King……….Goldie/Wendy
Brittany Murphy……….Shellie
Clive Owen……….Dwight
Mickey Rourke……….Marv
Nick Stahl……….Junior/Yellow Bastard
The Movie
In between the time Sin City was released in theatres and the time it was released on DVD initially, there was a feeling that while the movie itself was brilliant, parts of the story were missing. As fans of the graphic novel have opined, parts of the novels that inspired the movie were missing. Now, after a bare bones release earlier in the year, Sin City: Recut & Extended comes 23 more minutes of material.
Sin City revolves around three separate stories taking place at around the same point in time in Basin City. Based off of Frank Miller’s graphic novel series, Sin City was filmed in front of a blue screen with only several actual objects. The film is almost entirely created off of computer effects and the three stories it tells come out spectacularly, with shockingly brutal violence punctuating some top-notch story-telling.
The Hard Goodbye features Mickey Rourke as Marv seeking vengeance for the woman he loved. Marv spends the night with Goldie (Jaime King) and she winds up dead in his arms, cops swarming his residence under the impression he killed her. What follows is an epic tale of vengeance as he goes off to find her killer amidst corruption and a seriously twisted killer named Kevin (Elijah Wood).
The Big Fat Kill follows, and this story features Clive Owen as Dwight and Benicio Del Toro as Jackie Boy. Jackie Boy is a police officer looking for a good time. He tries to find it with Shellie, his ex, but Dwight will have nothing of it. He follows him out of Shellie’s and into Old Town, where Jackie strikes the wrath of the prostitutes that run it led by Dwight’s old flame Gail (Rosario Dawson).
The Yellow Bastard is the final piece of the movie. Bruce Willis is John Hartigan, a cop who saves the life of 11 year old Nancy Callahan from Junior (Nick Stahl), a pedophile protected on high by his family. Imprisoned by strings from Junior’s family for eight years pass, Hartigan is released and meets up with the now 19 year old Nancy (Jessica Alba). Nancy has grown up into a buxom exotic dancer with a love for Hartigan; both are followed by the Yellow Bastard, a man with a mysterious connection to their past.
While the first attempt at creating a movie like this, last summer’s Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, featured a cast unsure of how to react without scenery and hampering the movie, Sin City takes this error and corrects it with spectacular results. The cast are completely at ease despite having no backgrounds to base their movements on. They are in the world of Basin City, not just in front of a screen. It is fluid, it is steady and it is natural.
The key to the movie is its’ use of color and violence. Filmed in black and white to mimic the look of the graphic novels, Sin City uses its’ few instances of color to make that particular moment shine. Marv thinks highly of Goldie, and we get this by the way he shows her. Goldie is always in color, always looking like the angel he views her as. Her twin, Wendy, is in black and white, and becomes color once more when she tells Marv to think of her as Goldie. Rodriguez uses color in this way, using it as his illumination. The movie’s violence is its’ trademark, but the use of color is used to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. We know when someone’s death means more; its’ shown more vividly and the blood is various shades of red and yellow as opposed to the grays and whites.
This movie is alternately stomach-churning and brilliant. The violence is completely over the top, and yet at the same time the movie doesn’t function as purely a violent spectacle. Basin City is a violent place and these are people doing what they have to do to get their means accomplished. Violence is a necessary part of survival for the characters and while it is shocking and revolting in some instances, it is wholly necessary and incredibly well done.
23 more minutes may seem like a lot from a pure numbers standpoint, but the additional footage of Sin City amounts to almost seven minutes of actual footage and 16 minutes of new end credits for each story. What it does add to the various stories is that they are a bit more complete, but nothing outstanding or detracting is added to the film.
Theatrical Score : 10 / 10
Extended Cut Score : 10 / 10
The Video
Presented in a 1.85:1 aspect ration, both versions of Sin City look spectacular. The transfer from the big screen to the small screen magnificently.
The Audio
Presented in a Dolby Digital format, the film sounds as good as it looks.
The Extras
Presented over two discs, the new edition of Sin City has more in extras than the first release did in total content.
Disc one :
Theatrical Version of Sin City is on this disc.
How it Went Down: Convincing Frank Miller to make the film is a retrospective from Rodriguez about how they convinced Miller to make the film. Featuring comments from Josh Hartnett, Bruce Willis, Benicio Del Toro and others from the cast, this feature runs around five minutes and is a brief discussion of the origins of the film.
Special guest director: Quentin Tarantino is a seven minute feature focusing on the relationship between Tarantino and Rodriguez. With a brief history of the films they’ve worked together on, it segues into the actual scene Tarantino directed (Dwight and Jackie Boy in the car, as Dwight talks to Jackie Boy’s corpse) and the two discuss how Tarantino’s style influenced the scene.
A Hard Top With a Decent Engine: The cars of Sin City is a featurette focusing on the cars of the film and graphic novel. Miller, a big fan of cars, has a lot of 1950s era cars in it. It’s interesting to hear how they were able to find all these relatively rare cars and match them with the actual cars in the film and runs around seven minutes.
Booze, Broads & Guns: The props of Sin City focuses on how they were able to meticulously recreate the world of Basin City for the film. There’s a lot of passion and real excitement from the props crew as they speak about how they were able to recreate everything. Using Miller’s graphic novels as a reference guide, they went through and matched everything they were going to use with what Miller had drawn originally. There’s also some interesting tidbits, as Tarantino had some of his swords from Kill Bill used in the film amongst other things.
Making the Monsters: Special effects make-up is a look back at the makeup and effects used in the film. Using Miller’s novels as their starting point, they designed their effects with Miller’s input as to how they developed the “monsters” of each story (Marv, Jackie Boy and Kevin).
Trench Coats & Fishnets: The costumes of Sin City follows the costuming of the film. One of the challenges of the film was finding clothing that was able to be made into looking like what Miller envisioned in the graphic novel.
The Theatrical Trailer and Teaser Trailer for the film are both included as well.
Commentary by: Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller
Commentary by: Robert Rodriguez & Quentin Tarantino
An audio track featuring a recording of the Austin premiere audience reaction
Sin-Chroni-City interactive game
Disc two :
The Full Cut of the film is the full version of the film with restored scenes not seen in the theatre. While it adds up to 16 minutes, it’s only a couple scenes with the bulk of time being new credits. You can also view the film in separate chapters, as the stories aren’t intermingled and presented in the way Miller drew them; as individual stories.
The movie in high-speed green screen is the film without any special effects built in. It’s interesting to see the cast and crew act without any of the scenery built in to the theatrical version. It’s amazing to see just how much technological work was used in the film.
15-minute flic school is another one of Rodriguez’s famous “educational” segments in which he teaches a little bit about the film and what he was able to take away from it. This one focuses on how he was able to use the blue screen and digital technologies and how he was able to be able to bring the graphic novel to life by using technology. It’s interesting to hear how certain scenes were created without being shot at the same time together; it’s rather interesting how many of the actors in scenes with each other never acted together, as he used the technology to craft pieces together.
The Long Take is 17 uninterrupted minutes of the segment of the film that Tarantino directed. It’s interesting to see Tarantino work with two accomplished actors like Del Toro and Owen on the set.
Sin City : Live in Concert follows a live performance of “Devil Woman” by Bruce Willis and the Accelerators in front of the cast and crew of both A Scanner Darkly and Sin City as well as locals from the area. The song is quite good, a power blues number in the vein of a ZZ Top song.
10-minute cooking school with Robert Rodriguez is another one of Rodriguez’s mainstays of DVD releases, as he always has something from the film that he takes 10 minutes on the DVD to show you how to make. This is how he makes breakfast tacos from scratch, with homemade flower tortillas, et al.
Also included is the full version of the Sin City graphic novel of The Hard Goodbye. First published as Sin City in Dark Horse Presents issues #51-62 and 5th Anniversary Special (June 1991-June 1992), and later reprinted as Sin City (The Hard Goodbye) in January 1993, The Hard Goodbye was Miller’s ode to film noir and the project that would occupy him for most of the 1990s.
Score : 10 / 10
