I decided not to watch Sin City, afraid the endless sights of severed hands, castration, cannibalism and bleeding heads would give me nightmares. I am not capable of laughing at the screen -- as some people do -- as savage scenes mount and tell myself the whole thing is a joke.
Even though I had squeamishly watched Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill films, I could still enjoy their drama and the strongly etched characters.
But friends who caught Sin City a week before its release have been warning me that filmmaker Robert Rodriquez, who directed it with Frank Miller, the creator of the very dark comic books inspiring the film, has outdone Tarantino as far as violence is concerned. My friends, who had a hard a time watching every bloody scene in the film, also said Rodriguez and Miller were not able to offer compellingly interesting characters.
(For trivia collectors, Tarantino is listed as a guest director. Figure out what he might have directed. Remember he was paid $1 to direct the scene!)
The black-and-white film tells unrelated stories set in a very dark Basin City filled by corrupt politicians, soulless police and revenge-bent prostitutes.
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And now, as I read the reviews -- which are not surprisingly very divided -- I do not think I want to see the film ever.
But box-officewallahs tell me the movie could be a sizeable hit, earning about $20 million in three days and pushing the delightful comedy Beauty Shop to second position.
Bruce Willis, without a hit for a while, may find his redemption in Sin City. But he can't take all the credit for the movie. The formidable cast includes Oscar winner Benicio Del Torro and recent Oscar nominee, Clive Owen (Closer).
And yet, I won't see the film.
Sharing my doubts is Richmond Times Dispatch's critic Daniel Neman. He writes, 'Robert Rodriguez has won the sweepstakes. His Sin City is now the most excessive movie ever made.
'Rodriguez is but the latest to fall victim to the Tarantino Theorem that violence is cool... But as Sin City forcefully proves, excessive violence is just boring and repetitive. And boring.'
I do not want to go anywhere near Terry Lawson, the Detroit Free Press critic, who writes: 'Woe be the critic who attempts to justify Sin City in any other way than by its sheer, gut-churning excitement and wit. The movie is one of the most violent, in-your-face films to be tossed into the mainstream in a long, long time.'
And another warning: 'This makes the bloodbaths of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill films look like kiddie pools.'
The movie is produced and distributed by Dimension, a division of Miramax which made its reputation and fortune over 15 years ago with Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. Miramax is also the distributor of Rodriguez's enormously popular children's films, Spy Kids.
The more I read about Sin City, the more tempted I am to watch something like Psycho, the black and white classic where even the most gruesome murder scene is more terrifying than shocking. I can watch it with my eyes open, even though my heart races.
As I tell myself once again that I am not going to miss much by not seeing Sin City, I find consolation in the Hollywood Reporter review: 'The major problem is that after about 10 minutes, you've seen all the movie's tricks. The look is hypnotic yet never changes. Repetition is the order of the day. And the cartoon savagery grows tiresome.'
Maybe I won't see Psycho. Instead, I may watch Pulp Fiction and tell myself that violent films can be tolerated if they are not mean-spirited or are not so brutal that we have to consider it all a big joke.
