Frank Miller's Sin City: A Dame To Kill For

It's "Just Another Saturday Night" and Saturday's are usually "Take Out the Trash" Day...

 

Frank Miller's Sin City: A Dame To Kill For (Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller, 2014) Frank Miller became the darling of comic-book fans by bringing a mature, gritty, often brutal, sometimes mystical approach to iconic comic-book heroes—specifically Marvel's Daredevil and DC's Batman—when he got the chance to write them and mark them with a stamp of more than just india ink. He could be radically forthright in his interpretations, and for young men—and women—enamored of four-color literature (people who read comic books and take them seriously), he became one of the top-tier of comic-creators.

But, writing for "Daredevil" and "Batman", owned by corporate interests who were also interested in the longevity of the character and its marketability for selling T-shirts and toys—sorry, action figures—there was only so much creative lee-way he was allowed. Creating his own works—like the Samurai series "Ronin" or his spartan graphic novel about the Spartans, "300," let his talents bloom full-flower. His "Sin City" series let him tackle the noirish aspects of pulp novels, filled with roughneck men and soft women who were hard as nails, while employing a radical design sense of dark pages (rather than the usual white) blasted by white highlights of louvered light with just a dash of color. Miller allowed his drawing to become blocky and stark, emphasizing the filmic frame, rather than graphic details. And he bleached the traditional four colors of comics—just as the industry was benefiting from more sophisticated color printing—to a monochromatic night-scape (something artist Jim Steranko had used to great effect in his graphic novel "Chandler: Red Tide").

Miller's influence could be seen when the Batman character returned to the screen under Tim Burton's direction (but, more especially when Zack Snyder was allowed to tinker with the character later), and he was approached to do script-work, turning out the screenplays for Robocop 2 and Robocop 3. His graphic novels started to make their way to film and he was approached by Robert Rodriguez to script a film version of his "Sin City" series, to which he was added as co-director as the resulting film took so many cues from the original work—Rodriguez was even using the graphic novels as story-boards.

That movie, Sin City, was a success, making a lot of money and revived the careers of a lot of people, including Mickey Rourke, who was encased in so much prosthetics to play the character of "Marv", but it didn't distract from his acting (he even did press interviews in the make-up which was...weird). Sin City looked different. It felt different. Plus, there was the eerie feeling that you were watching a comic-book literally come to life—the same impression evoked by Zack Snyder's adaptation of Miller's 300—that the film was merely filling in the missing parts of the "money shots" displayed in the comics. But, it wasn't a movie you could take seriously—you needed a jaded humor to appreciate that it was over-the-top satire and not really reflective of the noir genre Miller wanted to ape. The dialogue was bad, clipped less from the gritted-teeth jargon of B-movie writing and more like Spillane spillage. What movie was it that said "the cheaper the hood, the gaudier the patter?"*  

Sin City (both the books and film) should be so lucky. It's a distillation of Hemingway minimalism and thug-mumbling, with punch-lines of nihilism that are supposed to be funny, but ultimately are just for an audience so low on Gustav Hasford's "phony tough and crazy brave" index that they think it's sophisticated. A.O. Scott had it right when he said that Sin City "offers sensation without feeling, death without grief, sin without guilt, and, ultimately, novelty without surprise." That's what they would call in these things "a head shot"—couldn't've been put better.

The financial success of the first Sin City led to a sequel of sorts—released nine years after the first one—featuring two original Miller tales as well as adapting his short story "Just Another Saturday Night", as well as the tale the film is titled for, "A Dame To Kill For".

The first film was a true anthology, with one of the stories being split up for a final resolution at the end. A Dame To Kill For jumps around, allowing time to pass for the healing of wounds and grudges to fester. The film also brings back characters from the first film—forget the fact that they might have died!—to continue stories or serve as prequels to the previous film.

The first story is one of Miller's shorter stories (from "Dark Horse Comics Presents") called "Just Another Saturday Night" in which his character "Marv" (Mickey Rourke) wakes up from an auto accident on the edge of town with no idea how he got there. This has to be an early tale—a prequel, if you will—because if you've seen the first Sin City movie, Marv was executed in it...by the electric chair.

The second story, "A Long Bad Night" stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Johnny, a cocky gambler who comes into town for a big score with under-pinned reasons. He goes to what seems to be the only bar in town—Kadie's Place, where all the Sin City regulars hang out, like Marv, and where Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba) dances. But, like everything in Sin City, it has a hidden side (given everybody's instincts one would think nothing would be hidden in that burg).

 

Senator Roark (Powers Boothe) arrives at Kadie's for the poker game in the back room—just missing being plugged by a vengeful-but-chicken Nancy for the death of her guardian angel, Hartigan (Bruce Willis—his character died in the last movie, but this is based on a comic book and nobody really dies in comics, even ones written by Frank Miller). Johnny, who's had a string of wins on the slots, uses one of the waitresses, Marcie (Julia Garner) to buy in on the game. 

 

He cleans out the Senator—who, of course, has a reputation and everybody named Roark in Sin City is not only a psychopath but a corrupt psychopath. With Roark seething, Johnny is advised by the police lieutenant in the game to blow Sin City and pronto, but, as nobody in town seems to have any sense whatsoever, Johnny takes Marcie and they decide to have a night on the town. It should be noted that, as this is an original Miller story for the movie, Rodriguez isn't depending on Miller's comics for story-boarding and shot-lists, but delves into something Miller doesn't do in his graphic work, which is to resort to surrealism.** It causes a bit of a disconnect when it happens, like suddenly a musical sequence pops into a kitchen-sink drama. Yes, it's a transition device, but it's something that Miller never resorted to, short of impossible acrobatics and virtiginous angles.

As soon as you can say the words "predictably obvious" Johnny is attacked in town by Roark's goons, which he manages to dispatch and tells Marcie he'll hook up with her later at a hotel. But, before he can high-tail it to safety, he's manhandled into Roark's limousine where his winnings are stolen, his fingers broken and he's left in the street with an added bullet in his leg and Roark telling him he's his bastard-son ringing in his ears. Johnny swears revenge because that's the chief economic product in Sin City. Fade to monochromatic black.

Cut to "A Dame To Kill For" featuring Josh Brolin as Dwight McCarthy (played by Clive Owen in the "The Big Fat Kill" in the first Sin City movie and Dame is a prequel to that story). Dwight is sober now, a private detective, and after a late-night rescue of a hooker (Juno Temple) from her corporate lover (Ray Liotta), he is contacted by an old flame Ava Lord (Eva Green) asking to meet him at Kadie's Place (natch!) to tell him that the fat-cat (quite literally) she left him for years a go is a violent abuser and that she now fears for her life. Dwight is non-committal, but he's an addict (isn't he?), so he can't help but go back to the Lord compound to see what he can do about her situation. What he spies doesn't tell him anything about abuse—Ava is swimming nude, obviously not showing any bruises and contusions—but, investigating further, he's beat up and tossed off the Lord property.

 

He goes home only to find a naked Ava in his bed. And, as Sin City people, apparently can't feel pain, he succumbs and the two frantically make love, despite his not trusting her and being beat up within an inch of his life. 

 

Another thing: With "A Dame To Kill For" Miller began experimenting with how much nudity he could get away with in his comics, usually with his by-now draping shadows, which, when Rodriguez replicates it for the screen, merely comes off as slightly ridiculous, along the lines of an Austin Powers "hide-the-wiener" sequence. Things are exposed, alright, but exposed as juvenile and puerile.

Yeah, yeah...I kvetch about the nudity, but I put these up...(for illustrative purposes, of course!)

And I might get a couple of extra puerile "clicks" for it.

Any after-glow he might have is interrupted by the Lord chauffeur-bodyguard Manute (Dennis Haysbert, replacing Michael Clarke Duncan, who had died in the 7-year lag between producing Sin City and Sin City: A Dame To Kill For) who beats Dwight up and tosses him out the window. So, Dwight has been beaten up twice over this woman—anybody detecting a flat learning curve?

Dwight's determined to save Ava, so he teams up with Marv (hey, it's a small town...) to strike the Lord compound and get her out, and although a fair amount of wet-work is done, the results are not optimum—Dwight ends up falling out another window after a few bullets to the body—and one to the face. Marv scoops up what's left and takes him back the detectives Old Town haunts, where he is tended to by a gang of assassin-hookers led by another old flame (Rosario Dawson) and the very dangerous ninja-assassin Miho (Jamie Chung), who heel his wounds and do some reconstructive surgery, presumably to help him look more like Clive Owen. The instruments probably won't need to be sharp as Dwight isn't that sharp himself, planning on making one more excursion to Lord Manor after his recuperation. The girls evidently don't do brain transplants...or extensive therapy.

 Here's another "film noir quote" for you: "So many guns. So few brains."***

Okay, enough about "A Dame To Kill For". Once enough people are pushing black-and-white daisies in that one, Rodriguez and Miller pick up the "Long, Bad Night" story...

Johnny, probably reading a Yelp! review of the reconstructive surgery-hookers, goes to see another saw-bones (Christopher Lloyd), a heroin addict, who resets Johnny's fingers (not sure why, as he presumably can look at his cards one-handed—it's not like he's a pool-hustler or anything) and sets out to get his revenge on his legitimately illegitimate Dad, the Senator. Absolutely busted, Johnny borrows a single dollar from a waitress (Lady Gaga...LADY GA-GA!?) and repeats the strategy that got him into the poker game at Kadie's...and cleans the Senator out...again. So...dear old Daddy shoots him in the head. End of story. We waited through the peek-a-boo idiocy of "A Dame To Kill For" to get this?

Yeah. But, it ain't over. There's still "Nancy's Last Dance"—remember the stripper at Kadie's...Jessica Alba/Bruce Willis...didn't shoot the Senator? Sounds like there's a revenge story going wasting. Can't have that.

Nancy decides to go after the Senator after spiraling into depression and drink and giving herself a bad hair-cut, all the time being watched over by the ghost of Hartigan...

Wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Isn't "Sin City"—the concept—derived from the hard-scrabble reality of B-movies and pulp-books? Aren't they supposed to be rooted in the American Promise Unfulfilled, where the well-intentioned are driven to desperation due to the economic inequities that reward the retention of wealth by any means necessary, while the principled person "doing the right thing" can't even catch a break? Isn't the basis of these things the "Reality-Is-A-Bitch" principle (if you can call it that)?

And we got a ghost? What the Hell?

I'll go out on the shakiest limb—Stanley Kubrick once said that his version of "The Shining" couldn't be depressing because it implied the existence of an after-life. Right? It doesn't all end with death. We go on. There is no such thing as extinction. Even a BAD after-life is better than no after-life at all. You get a do-over. Another chance. You don't get "second chances" in film-noir unless "the other guy" is a sucker. And you don't wake up from "The Big Sleep" that's what makes it so bad. Death eliminates Hope...and the near-occasion of fooling yourself.

And yet, here's Frank Miller going all-Shirley Jackson on us. What a bunch a' hooey.

Or...maybe they just wanted Willis back, however implausibly, to boost audience recognition and as a box office draw. Talk about "hope". Didn't work, though; Sin City: A Dame to Kill For was an aesthetic failure, a critical failure, and a box office failure, the full negative-Hat Trick.

There's only so many times you can go to the well, when it's basically a dry hole. It's a parody. It's like telling the same joke twice in a row. Don't expect the same results both times. Resurrect all the characters you want; all you're showing is that you've run out of ideas.

One thing you can say, for sure, about Sin City: They've got a hell of a recycling center.

* Dashiell Hammett wrote it for "The Maltese Falcon." I've read everything Hammett ever wrote. He knew he was writing trash, but, by god, he made sure it was the BEST trash, and elevated the genre.

** Although he would when he was directing his film of The Spirit.

 

*** Yeah, that's Raymond Chandler from "The Big Sleep"

The Wrestler

Written at the time of the film's release...

"Career Suicide" 

or 

"Falling at the Meat Market" 

The body is bulked up like a Macy's balloon. The face is lumpy and puffed from bad plastic surgeries to enhance his cheek-bones. The voice is full of razor blades, punctuated by phlegm-caked gasps. 

For awhile now, Mickey Rourke has only taken roles that hide his mangled features. But he's been never less than interesting in those roles (even when he's been less than intelligible). Whether with sunglasses or the elaborate make-up that turned him into Frank Miller's "Marv'" in Sin City,* Mickey Rourke has hidden himself as he does his sporadic film work. Whatever demons drive the actor have made securing financing for films featuring him difficult at best.** There have been a lot of missed opportunities: can you imagine Mickey Rourke in a Quentin Tarantino film? There's a sleaze-match made in back-water heaven. 

So, here he is, Main-Eventing The Wrestler, freak-showed out, his face obscured for the first few minutes of the film, as if delaying the inevitable and pretty soon, you ignore the puffery and start to see the performance, as restrained and gentle as anything he's done in years. 

He's getting all the acclaim for the film's "broken-down piece of meat" scene in the trailers, but there are moments of brilliance here—the animal-eye-of-panic that occasionally creeps out of Robin ("Call me 'Randy'") Ramzinski, aka Randy "The Ram" Robinson during a match, and an extended scene that begins as "The Ram," a heart attack forcing his retirement, steels himself for a shift working the deli counter at his day-job super-market. He spends a sullen couple of hours learning the ropes, and then—Ram-Jam!—his natural entertainer's instincts kick in as he starts dealing with customers. It's a scene that brings out a smile because Rourke is ad-libbing his way through it, glorying in the eccentricity of it all.

It's as good as it gets for Rourke and his anti-Rocky character. It is not fair to say that Rourke is the only reason to see The Wrestler. Marisa Tomei does good tough work here as a working-class stripper, and Evan Rachel Wood makes a lot of the under-written role of Randy's estranged daughter. 

And while Darren Aronofsky became overly-stagey in his last film The Fountain, here he's dogging Rourke's path with tight point-of-view compositions that breaks the kayfabe and paints the world of the small-time pro wrestler—at least from the point-of-view of a face at House shows. The petty rivalries and the macho camaraderie, the brief pre-show negotiated calls, and the sweaty stage-craft of brutality are all on hand-held de-glammed display. It's a world of soiled bandages and card-tables and getting back into the ring. It's as sordid a picture as Aronofsky can make it, but it doesn't hide the moments of personal grace between screw-ups and free-falls. It also shows that the biggest falls these post-modern gladiators take are the self-inflicted ones. It's final shot is one I've been thinking about for days.

The View from 2021: Every few days I still think of that shot.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: Mickey Rourke as he appeared in Diner

* The man even did his press interviews for the film in the camouflaging "Marv" make-up. How twisted is that? 

** He was nearly fired from The Wrestler even after Aronofsky had secured a deal for making it for less money than intended. The actor in the wings? Rourke's Rumble Fish co-star Nicolas Cage.

The Expendables (2010)

Written at the time of the film's release....you can tell because it mentions Arnold Schwarzenegger having a political career...before we'd all heard of "Maid-gate."

Do I have to mention Saturday is "Take Out the Trash" Day?

"The Most Appropriately Titled Movie of the Year!!"
or
The Answer to Where All the hGH in Hollywood Went

First, to be fair, one does not walk into a movie like The Expendables to judge the line-readings. It's a good thing, as the only performance worth a damn is Mickey Rourke's beautifully played monologue in the middle of the movie, which stands out like an ice-swan at a spam-carving contest.  Everybody else, it's a crap-shoot (emphasis before the dash).

"Crap-Shoot" might have been a better title for the movie, as it's equal parts both. The latest in a series of 2010 "Dirty Dozen" knock-offs (after The Losers and The A-Team), this one takes its appeal in gathering so many testosteroasted hams, all of whom have seen better days. The main stars are Sylvester Stallone (who directed), Jet Li, and Jason Statham, with extended cameos from the rest of the cast (why, there's even a brief, unnecessary "Planet Hollywood" board meeting between Stallone, Bruce Willis, and the non-acting Gubernator of Kullyfarnyah, Mr. Schwarzenegger*—who seems to have forgotten how to act, along with all his campaign promises). The only stand-outs are the vascularity on the prominently displayed biceps, not that anyone would look good barking the inane juvenilia contained in the script.  

Okay, so let's forget "art," for a moment, and lower the squat bar to "execution" (*sigh*  "if only..."). The action scenes (supervised by 2nd Unit Director Terry Leonard, who has done good work in the past) are sloppy, jam-edited for intensity, and often laughable (I lost count of how many times they pulled the never-believable "guy-holds-a-knife-handle-to-his-throat-like-somebody-just-threw-it-at-him" trick), and that applies to whether the "E's" are fighting the bad guys, or amongst themselves. These guys can hold a gun—and maybe not blink when firing one, I didn't notice—grunt when they're hit, and simulate rough-necking (except for "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, who A) can't act, and B) broke Stallone's neck during a choke-hold), but anything else is far more taxing—like, you know, keeping an accent, or even a consistent personality, throughout the proceedings.

But, there are the numerous neck-twists, blood-spurts, and even the occasional spaghettification of an extra every few minutes, but one wonders why some of these guys, who made their reputations on better product in the 80's, would decide to come out of retirement (or exile) to appear in such a worthless piece of trash. There's a lot of Human Growth Hormone under the skin of these guys (Stallone, particularly, is starting to look like Robert Evans!), but any other growth—well, they haven't made a pill for that. After all, the phrase isn't "Better acting through chemistry." As it is, this film feels lame, and aged—like Wild Hogs with evisceration. 

* Stallone must have promised to wash their windows, or something. The novelty of seeing Schwarzenegger back on anything but a political stage has been heavily promoted in the ads, but he's there for four minutes, tops—hardly enough to get in shape for.  I'm sure there's SOME-one out there, outside of a day-care or the Democratic Party, that's been hoping for Schwarzenegger's screen return, but I think that may be a side-effect of extensive steroid use. 

2020 Hindsight Addition: There was a link to Arnold's Governor page under the "Kullyfarnia" but when I checked on it, it took me to a "This Page Has Moved" place-holder. Boy Howdy.

I wrapped up the review with this: "The Expendables" is a Waste of Time, Money and an army of Ballistic Gel Dummies!

The thing has generated a few sequels, though. Something to be said for that.

Body Heat

Body Heat (Lawrence Kasdan, 1985) "It's hot."

Oh, man, you have GOT to be careful what you wish for!

A little history: after selling his second script*, Continental Divide to Steven Spielberg, the director brought Kasdan in to re-work the script of Raiders of the Lost Ark (lest we forget, the first Indiana Jones movie), whose work so impressed Executive Producer George Lucas, he brought Kasdan on to re-tool Leigh Brackett's script for The Empire Strikes Back, then again for the trilogy finale The Revenge Return of the Jedi, with one particular bargaining chip played between Episodes V and VI.

That bargaining chip happened to be Body Heat. First-time director Kasdan (with some behind the scenes anonymous studio support by Lucas to assuage nervous studio chiefs) did a full-color update of James M. Cain for the "me decade" and, in so doing, made one deliberately horny—smart, but horny (the two are much more often than not mutually exclusive!)—movie.

Ned Racine (William Hurt) is nobody's idea of a decent attorney, as he takes as much care with his lovers as he does with his cases—very little—as he's all surface and no depth—one judge tells him he hopes the next time he comes into his court he has a better defense "or a better class of client". Ouch! Burn! Maybe that's why it happens, a search for a better class of...anything. At an outdoor concert in the middle of a blistering Florida heat wave, he meets Mattie Walker (Kathleen Turner, in her film debut channeling the young Lauren Bacall, in her film debut), who is the answer to his prayers—if he did any praying.  He's all fancy patter and pick-up lines, but she's not too impressed. "You're not very bright, are you? I like that in a man," she husks. 

"What else do you like? Lazy? Ugly? Horny? I got 'em all."

"You don't look lazy," she cracks.

She's smart. He thinks he's smart. She's classy and he's a lawyer, who rarely gets an encounter with that quality. Racine is a small fish in a fetid pond—more of a bottom-feeder, really, but he thinks of himself as a big fish in a small pond, and his clients match his tactics. But, he has delusions of grandeur, given his ego, so he's constantly trolling for a step up to show the world how much better he is than his work would indicate.

So, imagine his good fortune at meeting Matty. She's everything he's not—classic and classy. But, he's more interested in what they have in common—they're both horny and they're both interested in him. What's not to like, after all? What could possibly go wrong? And Ned is always quick with a good line that feels self-deprecating: "I need somebody to take care of me, someone to rub my tired muscles, smooth out my sheets." "Get married", she counters. "I only need it for tonight!" It makes her laugh.

Matty is well-regarded in the community. Perhaps too well-regarded. When the two meet later (by accident?) at a local watering hole, Ned notices a table of men who keep watching her—rejects who have tried to last in the stool neighboring hers. They're all wash-outs with obvious lines and obvious hunger. But, Ned plays it a little cooler in the Florida heat and as her temperature runs a little bit above normal, so she decides to let him follow her to her house to "hear my wind-chimes" that deceptively ring that there might be a breeze, but there never is..."just hot air."

After feigning an argument for the yokels to think they're not leaving together, Ned follows Matty home, but he's a little too aggressive, and she retreats to her mansion. But, she stays in sight, heaving, waiting, and Ned passes the "lean-and-hungry" test by using some of her lawn furniture to to smash through the glass door, and they begin a torrid affair—her husband (Richard Crenna), who's a fixer of some kind, is out of town, and as long as they're discreet and keep it out of sight, they have the run of the place.

But, Matty's unhappy. She hates her husband, even though he's provided a good life-style, and would like him out of it—her life-style, I mean. And Ned's a lawyer, so if hubby can be eliminated and Ned can "fix" the will, they can enjoy the freedom they have become accustomed to. Pretty soon, she's convinced Ned that he can make it happen, even though he's warned by an ex-client of his (played by Mickey Rourke, very early in his career):

I got a serious question for you: What the fuck are you doing? This is not shit for you to be messin' with. Are you ready to hear something? I want you to see if this sounds familiar: any time you try a decent crime, you got fifty ways you're gonna fuck up. If you think of twenty-five of them, then you're a genius... and you ain't no genius. You remember who told me that?

It was Ned, of course, and he can only nod. It's not that Ned is stupid—he passed the bar, after all—it's just that he's not thinking with his brain, but with another organ. And once he's involved up to his hips, he doesn't realize that he's going to be sinking even further, to an outcome that's more in keeping with his clientele behind bars, putting him in a class that he's never seen himself part of, and never thought of for himself.

Kasdan's script is clever, full of quotable lines** and a pay-off that you just don't see coming, despite the fact that he's working with recycled material here, albeit one for a time in which characters are allowed to "get away with" things without some retribution from the law or Higher Powers, making it stand out from other "two's company-three's a potential felony" type of film-noir. And for a first-time director, Kasdan is very assured, keeping things erotic, but just ever-so-suggestively out of "X" territory (no frontal nudity below the waist and a lot of "backal" nudity), with a nice sense of understated lighting, helped by the efforts of Richard Kline, who rarely was given a chance to do something understated—or underlit—in his previous work. And John Barry's score, deep in his "slower temp" phase, evoked those wind chimes with a smarmy saxophone overlay that, by itself, made you feel like you should take a shower afterwards.

And the actors—particularly Turner and Hurt—are just plain brave, playing characters who are hiding weaknesses and unspoken thoughts while very frequently being physically exposed. It's a high-wire act in the nude. And if the noir side of movies, seem very American and very cynical, this one makes the others look like musicals. Even more for the fact that it's one of those stories where naked ambition is rewarded (or thwarted) by whoever is the wiliest of the bunch, and willing—in the words of the murder victim in the story—"to do what's necessary. Whatever it takes."

Body Heat does follow any moral code or religious stricture. It's playing by the rules of Darwin: survival of the fittest.

It's a smart movie. And..."it's hot."

* The first was The Bodyguard, which was eventually made with Kevin Costner and Whitney Huston.

** My favorite: At a hearing, one of the lawyers says "Would anyone mind if I smoked?" and everybody starts pulling out their cigarettes with the lone exception of Racine friend Peter Lowenstein (a pre-"Cheers" Ted Danson), who, when he's offered one says: "No thanks, I'll just breathe the air..."