I Watch Films: Sin City: A Dame To Kill For

Sin City: A Dame To Kill For

2006’s Sin City was a breath of fresh air. Sure it was dumb and the interconnecting stories were just a nod towards a larger setting, and it was all the most obvious bits of gritty pulp noir fiction with no irony or self-awareness. But it looked cool and everything was turned up to eleven. So why does this very similar somewhat belated sequel not work at all as well?

SPOILER CITY 700 ft.  Skip to the Watch This in bold to avoid it.

Sin City had three main stories, about Marv (ending in his death), Dwight, left open, and Hardigan and Nancy (ending in Hardigan’s death). Here we get a small Marv story, another Dwight story involving Marv, another Nancy and Hardigan story involving Marv and another story with John (a new character) getting the better of the villain from Nancy’s story. What I’m saying is that we get the same small group of characters, two of whom had completed their stories, all coming back again. That twice people decide to crash a powerful person’s house and get Marv to help them seems repetitive. (I was thinking at one point that if anyone learned to dodge or block a punch it would be game changer for the fights in Sin City, and then Marv ducks one at a vital moment so that was pretty good). That the story that doesn’t involve Marv is about John besting Senator Roark at a great cost and that Nancy’s story is about besting senator Roark (having already paid a great price) doesn’t help because one is obviously a better result. If you’re up against the-powers-that-be in Sin City and with all the luck and skill in the world all you can do is create a story that puts them in a bad light is a thing. If half an hour later someone in the same film shoots them dead it makes that revenge pointless.

I guess what I’m saying is that sure, everything in Sin City is grim and dark and there’s no escape but does that mean we have to see the same people doing similar things again and again? Do our powerful enemies have to murder a woman horribly to attack the protagonist?

Some good stuff (I like looking at a stylised silhouette of a naked Eva Green as much as the next guy, maybe more) but in all it seems to add up to less. When you turn everything up to eleven, maybe there’s no way to move forward or back and you’re stuck turning in circles.

Watch This: For some ridiculous very stylish pulp noir adventures
Don’t Watch This: If you don’t want people being broken down by Sin City and only escaping through violence or betrayal