Holy Cow, what a ride!

Rating: 8/10 (11 April 2005)

This movie is stunning on a variety of levels.
The visual styling is likely the biggest standout for this film. The roles, the story lines, the dark humor, the skin, and the violence are all remarkable.
The cars are all some form of classic, there is a stab at gumshoe-noir dialogue which unfortunately gets in its own way at times, and using the likes of Rutger Hauer and Mickey Rourke to such good effect all wrap up to make this an amazing violence- and action-laden adventure.
*** POSSIBLE NOT-VERY-SPECIFIC SPOILERS AHEAD ***
If there are knocks for me to give it, they would be the following: As I mentioned, the noir-style self-dialogue narration sometimes worked to set the mood, other times it was too far overdone.
Rosario Dawson, IMHO, could have been a LOT sexier.
Jessica Alba's scene where she is being tortured didn't work that well for me, particularly in regard to that flimsy shirt managing to survive a brutal whipping by TYB. I (almost) understand if she didn't want to make that a topless (or very close to it) scene, in which case that role needed to go to someone else.
Some of the girls of Old Town needed to be seen more! Wow...
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I scored this an 8/10. Thought very hard about a 9/10. For a violent romp that will find a way for you to justify seeing it a second time, it does its job very well. There are a lot of things going on that go by fast, or go by with your attention diverted to something else that you will want to go back and check again.