In 2005, “Sin City” broke new ground in the comic book film genre, blending a violent, hard-hitting story with cutting-edge visuals to make a film unlike anything that audiences had ever seen before. The franchise’s 2014 entry, “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For,” is a sequel that delivers all the thrills, mayhem and awesome visuals of the first and then some. Frank Miller, author of the “Sin City” graphic novels, directs along with Robert Rodriguez. An A-list cast includes returning stars Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson and Powers Boothe. It also includes newcomers Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Josh Brolin and Eva Green. The screenplay is based on Miller’s comics and was co-written by Miller and Rodriguez.
“A Dame to Kill For” follows the same multiple-story line format as the original. Most of the plot lines are straight from the pages of the graphic novel, but two were created specifically for the film. The separate plot lines tie in as prequels and sequels to the story lines of the first “Sin City” and overlap each other at some points throughout the film. One plot line follows Marv (Mickey Rourke), who finds himself in a crashed car in the slums of Basin City and struggles to remember how he got there. Another follows Johnny (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a gambler who crashes a private poker game hosted by Senator Roark (Powers Boothe) at a club Roark owns. Johnny challenges the devilish Senator to a game, intending to bring him down even if it means sacrificing his own life. Meanwhile, Nancy (Jessica Alba), who works at Roark’s club, is also planning the Senator’s demise. Desperate to escape, her plans of revenge are guided by the ghost of her lover and protector, John Hartigan (Bruce Willis), who sacrificed his life to save hers in the first film.
A star-studded cast buoys the material with engaging performances. Alba shines as good-girl-turned-exotic-dancer Nancy, masterfully blending the character’s dual nature. She is a self-destructive, booze-swilling, gun-wielding heroine and an innocent, vulnerable victim. Gordon-Levitt’s Johnny is a sharp, self-sacrificing hero. He also relies on brains rather than brawn to best his enemy. Rourke’s ever-imposing Marv takes a more supportive role in this film compared to the first. In this movie, he serves the film’s other protagonists as a hired gun. Josh Brolin and Eva Green star in one of the new plot lines as Dwight McCarthy and Ava Lord, a volatile couple whose passionate relationship is riddled with lies, murder and mistrust. Brolin is brilliant as the violent and love-struck McCarthy, and Green is alluring and dangerous as the emerald-eyed, ruby-lipped Ava, who is the film’s titular dame.
This movie turns violence into an art form with breathtaking scenes of shamelessly gory, artistically brilliant acts of brutality that involve broken bones, gouged-out eyes, disfigured faces, no shortage of blood and some “Kill Bill”-style sword fighting. Love them or hate them, these cartoonishly violent scenes form a critical part of the franchise’s film noir aesthetic, and fans of this particular type of violence are not disappointed.
“A Dame to Kill For” retains the visually stunning, comic book aesthetic of the first film. The look is characterized by rich black and white colors that are occasionally punctuated by a splash of vibrancy. Cameras are set up so that each shot looks as though it could be a panel ripped straight from a graphic novel. The movie’s look is further enhanced with bold ink lines and heavy backlighting, causing the characters to look something like two-dimensional drawings that have come to brilliant, three-dimensional life.
The challenging but ultimately satisfying setup of multiple plots keeps the movie exciting and helps with pacing by keeping things fresh. It produces an effect that resembles skipping around the panels of a comic book, picking up a little story here and there. Ultimately, it pulls everything together. With such lively characters and interesting individual story lines, it is easy to engage with the film, especially during those satisfying moments when the plots overlap, adding a sense of cohesion and realism.
“Sin City: A Dame to Kill For” offers a potent mix of brutality and beauty. It is a sleek, one-of-a-kind combination of film noir and comic book pulp that combines gritty characters, intricately interwoven plot lines, eye-popping violence and stunning graphics. With multiple nonlinear plots, audiences may need to pay a little extra attention to capture everything that the film is trying to convey in its story. However, the payoff is certainly worth it, and “A Dame to Kill For” is undoubtedly a film to watch.