"An old man dies, a young girl lives. Fair trade"

Rating: 10/10 (20 July 2007)

From its opening scene to the closing credits Sin City is everything I hoped it would be. A masterpiece. As bloody and violent as it is, the movie itself gives eye candy. Even without the action, the movie itself is great. The plot is on key, the acting superb, and the direction beautiful. Not to mention the visual effects which were absolutely stunning.
The movie itself is set into several different stories all interlocking, similar to Pulp Fiction (Tarantino even gets to guest direct one great scene). The movie takes these stories directly from Frank Miller's comic book. I might also add that every scene is an exact frame by frame motion of the comic book and even has the same feel. It gives you the neo-noir feeling, and where it's corny in other movies, it works here.
Every main character narrates their own story. Det. John Hartigan(Bruce Willis) narrates "That Yellow Bastard," Marv (Mickey Rourke), "The Hard Goodbye," and Dwight Mccarthy(Clive Owen) narrating "The Big Fat Kill." All are extremely well narrated and their dialog (or should I say monologue) is well written.
The first story shows The Man (Josh Hartnett) meeting a woman in a red dress(Marley Shelton) in which we learn the how dangerous Sin City is.
The next is the first part(one could even say the prologue) of "That Yellow Bastard" as Det. John Hartigan struggles to save Young Nancy (here played by Mackenzie Vega) from being tortured, raped, and killed by Junior Roark, the son of the dirty U.S senator. What's interesting about this part is that it shows Hartigan's dedication to his job and the romance he and Nancy will have.
The next is "The Hard Goodbye. Marv (Mickey Rourke), an aging psychopath who gets daily pills from his Parole Officer Lucille (Carla Gugino). He's so grotesque, he can't get any woman. Except Wendy. The one girl who shows kindness to him is killed when he wakes up. Marv can't stand it. Who would want to kill her. He wants answers, no matter how he's gonna get them, and there's going to be hell to pay.
Afterwards we are entertained with a pleasantly long story, " The Big Fat Kill." After witnessing Jackie Boy (Benicio Del Toro) beat up his ex-girlfriend Shelly (Brittany Murphy) , Dwight McCarthy decides to follow them to make sure they don't cause trouble. He follows them into Old Town (what we could call Red Light District), and they are killed by the girls of old town. However there's a bomb shell. Jackie Boy's a cop. A hero cop not to mention. Along with the help of Gail(Rosario Dawson) and Miho (Devon Aioki) he must dump Jackie Boy's body (along with his friends who were along for the ride) to prevent a war.
The last story is the conclusion to "That Yellow Bastard." Hartigan has been sent to prison and is blamed for kidnapping and molesting Nancy. The two develop a friendship and begin sending each other friendly messages. Eight years later he receives a letter with a finger inside which he believes to be Nancy. He gives the court what they want and gets out of jail. His priority is to find Nancy and save her. When he does find her, however, she's fine. (At this point she is played sexily by Jessica Alba) It's at this point when we realize it was all a trap to lead "someone" to her. He must get her to safety before something happens.
The whole movie is well made. It has an all star cast, a great director, and a great screenplay. We all know Robert Rodriguez for his great movies (I.E El Mariachi, Desperado, and Once Upon a Time In Mexico) and his dumb but fun movies (From Dusk till Dawn, The Faculty, and the Spy Kids Series) but I believe this is one of his better film and is absolutely a must see. You will not be bored nor disappointed.
Sin City 10/10