A Savage and Sexy City of Pulp Fiction Regulars
By MANOHLA DARGIS

There are eight million stories in the naked city and almost as many crammed into "Sin City." Based on the comic book series of the same name by Frank Miller, who directed the film with Robert Rodriguez, this slavishly faithful screen adaptation tracks the ups and downs (mostly downs) of tough guys and dolls recycled from the lower depths and bottom shelves of pulp fiction. Instead of Raymond Chandler, though, with his weary allusions to Shakespeare and Keats, these hard-boiled tales owe a debt to the American primitivism of Mickey Spillane and comic book legends like William Gaines.

Set in a nowhere metropolis, the film opens with a gaspingly beautiful image of a woman staring into the night. Dressed in a shimmering gown the color of newly spilled blood, she stands with her back to the camera, oblivious. That gives us time to register that this red is the only color in a landscape exclusively painted hot white, bottomless black and silvery gray. It also gives the narrator (Josh Hartnett) time to creep up on her. Soon, the man offers the woman a cigarette and takes something far more precious from her in return. With a few short sentences and an act of violence, the filmmakers telescope the death and desire to follow, as well as the underlying brutality of their world.

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