The “banned” poster for Sin City: A Dame to Kill for. This is the most clothes Eva Green wears in the whole film.
I’ll get it out the way now: I have a lot of time for Robert Rodriguez. I was 15 or 16 when I read and re-read Rebel Without a Crew, his diary of making El Mariachi for $7000 (the cost of the film stock). If you’re interested in truly independent film-making, then there really is no excuse for you not to read it.
In short, Rodriguez decides to make a film for the Mexican straight to video market as a trial run for breaking into the mainstream film industry. He raises the money by checking into a clinic for a drug trial for a month, where he writes the script and finds the guy who plays the bad guy. He shoots it just south of the border with friends and anyone else he can rope in, at locations he can use for free. He cuts it in an edit suite he gets for free, having to stay at his desk all night when he person running the place leaves and puts the alarm on. A chance connection leads him not to the Mexican video industry, but to Hollywood, where he gets an agent and Columbia buy his movie. There is a hilarious moment when, after showing a trailer he cut for the film, his agent asks how much it cost. “$7000.” Rodriguez replies. He is told that’s good; trailers usually cost more. Rodriguez has to point out that his whole film cost that much, not just the trailer. Awards at Sundance and talk show appearances follow, as does the Hollywood bigtime. You cannot help but admire him and be inspired. Buy the book.
Anyway, I come not to praise, but to ask “Really? Was anyone screaming for a second Sin City film after all these years?” I thought the first film was good; HD digital was new, it was an innovative way of recreating a comic book on screen before every film became a comic book movie. It’s been nine years, people have moved on. Except, perhaps, Rodriguez; Sin City was his last successful film, which is maybe why he has revisited it.
The story of Sin City 2 appears to be the story of Eva Green’s breasts. A poster for the film featuring her was not approved because it showed “curve of under breast and dark nipple/areola circle visible through sheer gown.” which of course led it to be shared by everyone on social media as a way of sticking it to the man for promoting violence but oppressing nipples. (if you’re helping promote a $60 million comic book movie made by the Weinsteins, you are not sticking it to any man). Ms Green – one of those actresses who hasn’t found enough roles to match her talents; though the overly ambitious but little seen Franklyn is worth checking out – spends much of the film naked, which it seems churlish to complain about, so I won’t. I will note that I’m not sure if all that nudity is exactly necessary. The teenage me would be disappointed that I’ve just complained about there being too much nudity from a gorgeous woman in a Robert Rodriguez film, but there you go.
As with the first Sin City film, A Dame to Kill For is largely black and white. The characters are largely black and white too, especially the women; a femme fatale, whores, a waitress with a heart of gold (a jarring cameo from Lady Gaga), and Jessica Alba as the only stripper who doesn’t take her clothes off. Bruce Willis reprises his role not from the first film, but from The Sixth Sense. I am reluctant to call it a sequel as some of the stories take place before the events of the first film, not that the stories matter; women are dangerous and will make you violent and powerful men are corrupt is about the short of it. Josh Brolin’s performance makes me wonder what he would have done if, as he was apparently offered, he had taken the part of Batman in the forthcoming Batman vs Superman.
I didn’t hate A Dame to Kill For, but I doubt I will be thinking about it much in a week. I can’t help but feel it would have been better served as a web series of shorts. Some of it looks like cut scenes from a really cool video game. In Rebel Without a Crew, first meeting with the man who becomes his agent, Rodriguez is told that if he doesn’t make it as a director, then he certainly has a career cutting trailers. It looks great. It’s 3D, but it’s a shame that the characters are strictly two dimensional.
Just as there was no need for Eva Green to have her norks on show for most of the film (though I imagine it will be an important film for fourteen year old boys), there was really no need for the film to be made at all. Still, an average film featuring Eva Green in a state of undress is better than most films, right?
films in middle depth 