Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

It's weird how some actors appear in films together in totally different contexts I just saw White Bird in a Blizzard where Eva Green and Christopher Meloni have a very unhappy marriage. They are reteamed in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, and while they aren't married, they do share a frenzied hump.

Sin City was Richard Rodriguez and Frank Miller's paean to noir and graphic novels. It was, to me, an exercise in style over substance, sizzle without the steak. They came back last year with a sequel, with some of the same characters and some new ones, but in the same style, which makes it look like a black and white comic book. I have to say I liked this one better.

As with Sin City, there are three intertwining stories. One involves a young hot-shot gambler (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who tries to take down the corrupt Senator Roark (Powers Boothe). Another has stripper Jessica Alba, with help from the freakishly tough Marv (Mickey Rourke) also trying to take down the senator. The central story is Josh Brolin getting involved with his ex, Green, who is the titular dame.

These stories had a little more oomph, and were far less over the top (last time there was a serial killer who looked like the Mr. Hyde version of Tweetie Bird). But of course there is plenty of violence and mayhem, and stylized fighting scenes that have the bad guys' henchmen mere fodder for the good guys. There are many arrows through heads.

It's also very indulgent and more than a little misogynistic. Alba is an interesting case. She's a stripper who doesn't strip (Alba does not get nude in films) and is presented as sort of helpless until, lo and behold, she has the fighting chops of a ninja. And Green, as the femme fatale, makes up for the lack of nudity, by being nude almost all of the time, and one of those dames that has a dollar sign where her heart should be.

The film, which Rodriguez shot and edited, has that great look, though, with stylized black and white, except for certain things, which are vivid color, like Green's blue dress and blue eyes. Blood is usually seen as white (but not always). Of the new characters, I favored Dennis Haysbert as Green's vicious chauffeur. Christopher Lloyd has a cameo as a seedy doctor (visits to back alley doctors are a noir staple, but this one is really done well). Bruce Willis reappears, but as a ghost, so you can't really be killed off in Sin City.