Jack Rafferty

SinCityCharacter
character_name =Jack Rafferty


caption = Sin City (film) (promotional poster)
comic_color=background:#000
publisher =Dark Horse Comics
debut = The Big Fat Kill
creators = Frank Miller
full_name = John "Jack" Rafferty
affiliation = Basin City Police
status = Deceased
portrayer = Benicio del Toro

Jack Rafferty is a fictional character in Frank Miller's "Sin City", the main antogonist of "The Big Fat Kill". He is mainly referred to by his nickname Jackie Boy. In the 2005 film adaptation of the comic books, he was portrayed by Benicio del Toro.

Background

In the commentaries on the "Sin City" DVD, Miller has stated that at one time, Jack Rafferty in fact was a decent cop. However, after years on the force, he seemingly ended up being corrupted and worn down from the job. He specifically said how the Jack Rafferty we see in the movie is at rock bottom. Miller has confirmed there will be a graphic novel coming soon showing the rise and fall of Rafferty.At the beginning of "The Big Fat Kill", Rafferty is paying a visit to his old girlfriend Shellie after clearly having way too much to drink. She wants nothing to do with him, but when he threatens to break down the door to her apartment, she lets him in out of fear, along with his pack of equally drunk friends (his 'troops'). He wants her to call some stripper and waitress friends of hers. After she refuses, Rafferty strikes Shellie in the face after claiming he had never hit a woman in his life. He goes to the bathroom where he is confronted by Dwight McCarthy, Shellie's new boyfriend, who had been hiding behind the shower curtain the whole time. Dwight threatens that if he does "ever so much as "talk" to Shellie again... I'll cut you in ways that [would] make you useless to a woman." Dwight then shoves his head in the toilet (which still contains his urine, hence the vomiting afterwards.)

After this humiliation, Rafferty and his friends run off to Old Town, the prostitute quarter of Basin City, pursued by Dwight. After evading a police squad car by entering Old Town, where the cops are forbidden entrance while they are on duty, Rafferty tries to pick up a young hooker named Becky, who rebuffs him. He finally loses what patience he has and pulls what seems to be a M1911 Colt pistol (similar to Marv's.) on her. This cues Miho, Old Town's resident assassin, to cut off his hand with a Manji-shaped shuriken. She slices up his gang, then comes for him. While the wounded Rafferty is distracted by Dwight, Miho throws a metal rod into his gun's barrel, causing it to backfire when he tries to shoot his rival, and the barrel and slide to lodge in his forehead. At the insistence of Dwight and Gail, she then turns him into "a PEZ dispenser", finishing the job.

Dwight and the Old Town girls then discover that he's actually a so-called 'hero cop', 'Iron Jack' Rafferty. If the cops find out that the Old Town girls killed him, the truce between them will be shattered, leaving them open to a hostile takeover by the mob. Realising this, Dwight offers to get rid of the bodies. Unfortunately, since there isn't enough room in the trunk of the shoddy deathtrap they supply him with, Jack sits in the front with Dwight, 'where anyone who cares to look will see him'. As his frustration rises and the instinctive bottling of his rage and fear that is his weakness begins afresh, Dwight begins to hallucinate and imagines that Rafferty is talking to him, mocking him at every turn. This interferes with Dwight's driving and he attracts the attention of a motorcycle cop. At the mocking suggestion of Jack, Dwight slams on the brakes, driving the gun barrel further into his head as he slams against the dashboard. The cop, believing Jack is merely drunk, tells Dwight, 'the designated driver', that he's driving with a busted tail-light, and lets him go with a warning.

As Dwight is about to dispose of the bodies at the Santa Yolanda Tar Pits, an abandoned theme park of sorts, Irish mercenaries attack and cut off Jack's head to give to the mob. Miho pulls him out of the tarpits, where the car had landed after a grenade blew it up, and he then finds out that Gail has been captured and held hostage by Manute, one of the mob's enforcers. Dwight and Miho pursue and kill the mercenaries and get the head back. He offers to exchange the head for her. They agree, and the exchange is made. However, Dwight has packed the head with one of the mercenary's grenades and reveals he is holding the remote detonator. The head explodes, eliminating the last piece of evidence, and the Old Town girls appear on the rooftops to shower the mobsters with bullets, killing "every last rat bastard one of them."

Film appearances

During the making of the film, del Toro told makeup artist Gregory Nicotero that he felt that he needed to have some minor prosthetic work so that he could look even more like the character. In response, Nicotero squared off his chin and gave him a longer, thinner nose. The resulting look was not only strikingly similar, but was also subtle enough to not be obtrusive, given the make-up used for Mickey Rourke's Marv and Nick Stahl's Yellow Bastard; in guest director Quentin Tarantino's words, "you forget that that's "not" what (Benicio del Toro) looks like."

Quentin Tarantino directed the scene in which Dwight hallucinates that Jackie-Boy's corpse is talking. One notable suggestion Tarantino brought to the character was that his voice be affected by his partially severed neck and vocal cords, ranging from a throaty yet sibilant gurgle to a hoarse, guttural whisper.

Possible new Sin City appearance

Due generally to good reception to character Jack Rafferty (both in comic and film), Frank Miller has stated that he wouldn't mind doing a novel on the "rise and fall of Jack Rafferty". This novel would showcase Rafferty's slow but steady descent into alcoholism, womanizing and the formation of somewhat of a Messiah complex.