Sin City

Hard, Brutal and A Noir Tribute

Main Cast: Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, Jessica Alba

Director: Robert Rodriguez

This sprawling, brutal story spans a dark and uncompromising city split into hawks and doves. It could possibly be summed up by one sound: the smack of a fist hammering soft flesh. But I’ll go into a little more detail.

The plot of Sin City is episodic, focusing on three or four stories that intertwine only marginally. One of the true heroes is Hartigan (Willis), an old cop on the verge of retirement who still takes on one more case: the rescue of a little girl from an insane child molester. This story, while short, seems to come to an end, but we aren’t quite done with those characters as yet. We then move on to follow Marv (Rourke), a gigantic and vicious street fighter who goes on a killing rampage after “Goldie”, the only women who seemed to care about him, is murdered. Then there is the generic hard-guy Dwight (Owen), who starts off protecting his girlfriend from a thug (Benicio Del Toro), but that simple act escalates into a gang warfare that threatens the entire city.

It’s hard to encapsulate everything about Sin City into a few sentences. The characters involved snap out witty one-liners while beating, gunning, smashing, slicing, or otherwise spewing blood from one another. And yes, the stories are linked, and some characters are seen from different angles in other stories. And there are so many actors involved, guest appearances or no, that it’s impossible to list them all. However, I must say that I think that linking the beginning and the end in such a clever way should be applauded.

I enjoyed Sin City, but I caution you that it isn’t for the faint of heart. There are few truly good people here: most are brutal, hard, and pretty much either deserve their fate or are innocent bystanders that are gunned down in a sad twist of cruel fate.