A Night Time City Full of Gulity Pleasures & the Choice Between Revenge & Redemption

Rating: 10/10 (14 June 2005)

Sin City is a night time city full of guilty pleasures where the people are torn between revenge and redemption. Based off the graphic novels by Frank Miller, Sin City is the best movie I've seen all year, and is the only one that really sticks to the graphic novels. I say graphic novels because there is a difference between graphic novels and comic books. Graphic novels are aimed toward adults, as Sin City should be, comics toward children.
How many of you saw Kill Bill: Volume 1? Do you remember the scene where The Bride is fighting in Japan and the screen suddenly went black and white? That was because Quentin Tarantino was told that the scene was too bloody and it would either have to go to black and white or to be cut altogether. He opted for black and white. If Sin City hadn't been intentionally done in black and white, it would have been forced to be. There is great violence in this movie. People are getting shot or killed with knives and swords or pipes. But it is all, almost, done with a good purpose. You may be startled but you think, "Hey, the guy deserved it." This movie is really three of the graphic novels out into one movie. The Hard Goodbye, The Big Fat Kill, and That Yellow Bastard. These three graphic novels all take place in the fictional town of Basin City, also called Sin City, where you don't know if the cops are clean or dirty, where women walk the streets, the bad guys are as high up as a United States Senator, and where danger is around every corner and there is no place to hide.
The Hard Goodbye tells the tale of Marv. Marv who has never known real love in his entire life until Goldie. Marv only knows Goldie for one night when she is murdered while he sleeps right next to her. It becomes Marv's goal to find Goldie's murderer and make him pay.
The Big Fat Kill is a story about Dwight. Dwight makes his original appearance in book 2, A Dame to Kill For, which is really just background information for book 3. Dwight goes to the part of Sin City known as Old Towne. Old Towne is run by the street walkers, the leader of which was romantically linked to Dwight, and the women have a perilous truce with the police. The girls keep that part in order and keep out the mob, but when something goes horribly wrong and a messy body gets discovered, it's up to Dwight to protect his friends, even if it means killing a whole lot of people.
That Yellow Basard is the account of an aging cop named Hartigan who is an hour away from retiring when he gets a call that an 11-year-old girl has been kidnapped by a lunatic; a loose end that Hartigan hadn't tied up.
All these stories are in the movie and are very clear to follow. They hardly ever overlap. What makes these stories really come to life is the color. The majority of the movie is in black and white. But every now and then you'll see a splash of color. In the opening scene, you see a woman standing on a balcony. Her surroundings are completely black and white, but her dress is a vibrant red. As are her lips. And when her eyes are mentioned, they light up green then fade back to black and white. It is the little surprises of color that makes you not want to take your eyes from the screen. The dialog is just as amazing.
When the characters actually talk or when you hear their thoughts, it is like watching an old 40's movie. One of my favorite lines is right at the beginning and it goes, "The silencer makes a whisper of the gunshot." Nobody talks like that anymore and it makes the movie that much more exciting. The dialog is just so old fashioned that it makes you remember the days of tommy guns and Dick Tracy. A character named Bob is talking to Hartigan and he says, "You're pushing 60, and you've got a bum ticker." It almost makes you giggle, if it weren't for what happens next, but we won't go into that.
This is one of the most gifted casts I've ever seen in one movie. You have Bruce Willis, Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke, Jamie King, Carla Gugino, Jessica Alba, Nick Stahl, Josh Hartnett, Elijah Wood, Benicio Del Toro, Michael Clark Duncan, Rosario Dawson, Michael Madsen, Brittany Murphy, and Alexis Bledel. Not to mention Robert Rodriguez directing with the writer Frank Miller, and Quentin Tarantino directing a scene. This movie is just There are almost no words describing it. You just have to go see it for yourselves. You have to. Your life will not be complete unless you go and see Sin City. I mean it. Now. Go find a car! "A hardtop, with a decent engine, and make sure it's got a big trunk."