Sin City means a lot to me personally: It became my introduction to film-noir as well as to the Pulp Ficiton film genere. In Sin City we follow various crooks on a selected day and we find, after a while, that they were all present in a bar at some time. Using a bar as ground zero is not very creative (Pulp Fiction used a roadside restaurant) but it works well and underlines many of the characterizations that are made.

I was dissapointed in the seminess of the film-noir influence. Still, I believe that the film provides a good introduction to film-noir for a young audience. A great many of those I have talked to were impressed with the only occasional use of color - an effect that effectively lets directors direct attention to wherever they want it. At the same time, the opening scene with the woman in the red dress and the assassination provides a shocking (and noir-like) start. Throughout the film, however, the noir-feeling dies away and soon there is little more than conceptual action. The effect of this transition is an existential conflict: what is the purpose of the film and what kind of film is it?

In the characters, especially Marv, we find the action-elements of the film. There is no realism and hardly any noirness over him. This is not the actors' fault, they all perform well, but the caracterizations as they are made in the script. Making film-noir from comics appears to be hard, even when the strips are as dark and sinister as Miller's, because the characters will always be unsuited. Perhaps the film is, after all, merely a new way of making comics? If that is the point, the production is excellent. At times, like when Marv escapes from Blondie's corpse, the film is very comic-like and absolutely brilliant.

When the film ended I felt that I have seen enough Pulp Fiction-style films, enough mediocre action and read more than enough comics. Still, I felt that my ticket was worth the price - the film is entertaining and reached out you on some deeper level. The film noir concepts remain an inspiration and not a genre for this film, however, which works well but is sad. Overall, however, there are few films that combine quality of thought and plain entertainment like Sin City does - the problem is just that compromises are never perfect.