Sin City (2005)

Sin City (also known as Frank Miller's Sin City) is a 2005 American neo-noir crime anthology film produced and directed by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez. It is based on Miller's graphic novel Sin City.

Much of the film is based on the first, third, and fourth books in Miller's original comic series. The Hard Goodbye is about an ex-convict who embarks on a rampage in search of his one-time sweetheart's killer. The Big Fat Kill follows a private investigator who gets caught in a street war between a group of prostitutes and a group of mercenaries, the police and the mob. That Yellow Bastard focuses on an aging police officer who protects a young woman from a grotesquely disfigured serial killer. The intro and outro of the film are based on the short story "The Customer is Always Right" which is collected in Booze, Broads & Bullets, the sixth book in the comic series.

Sin City opened to wide critical and commercial success, gathering particular recognition for the film's unique color processing which rendered most of the film in black and white while retaining or adding color for selected objects. The film was screened at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival in competition and won the Technical Grand Prize for the film's "visual shaping".

Plot
Pivoting around four stories from Frank Miller's Sin City universe, three tainted anti-heroes of Basin City, the cradle of crime and corruption, cross paths in their search of redemption. On the brink of retirement, Detective John Hartigan, the vile city's last honest cop, breaks every rule in the book in his crusade to save the innocent eleven-year-old girl, Nancy Callahan, from the clutches of the well-connected child molester, Roark Junior. Meanwhile, in another part of the town, bearing the deep scars of endless fights, Marv, the hulking ex-convict and grotesque brute with the killer fists, finds himself framed for a crime he didn't commit, hell-bent on revenge and murder. Finally, as a bloody act of justice in the Old Town, the city's red-light district, threatens the already delicate truce between the local prostitute community and the police, the taciturn private eye, Dwight McCarthy, becomes a protector after helping their cause. Can there be justice without sin?

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Incredible direction from Robert Rodriguez, as well as Quentin Tarantino.
 * 2) The film was recreated with panels from the comics and the dialogue is identical to the comics with better improvements. It adapts the scenes from the comics almost always beat-for-beat.
 * 3) The color process rendering most of the film in black-and-white is amazing, with some characters with color such as Yellow Bastard. There's even points where blood is red while the rest of the scene is black-and-white, which looks amazing. Sometimes blood is even stark white like in the comic book.
 * 4) The movie's aesthetics and neo-noir style are top notch.
 * 5) Likewise, the cinematography is beautiful to watch.
 * 6) There is a recut edition that has every story told in their own order instead of some at once.
 * 7) Every single actor did a terrific job in the film; mainly Jessica Alba and Mickey Rourke, which helped resurrect his career.
 * 8) The movie adapts many of the greatest stories in the Sin City series, including The Hard Goodbye, That Yellow Bastard, and The Big Fat Kill.
 * 9) Many interesting characters throughout, like officer John Hartigan, one of the few honest cops in the city who risks his career and life to catch a child rapist with diplomatic immunity, and Dwight McCarthy, who tries to hold back "the monster" inside of himself, but must also protect his friends.
 * 10) Plenty of funny moments throughout as well that don't clash with the dark atmosphere, like a scene where a neo-nazi is shot through the chest with an arrow and barely even reacts, then gets shot again through the swatstika on his head.

The Only Bad Quality

 * 1) The theatrical version shows the stories in a random order. Apparently they're kind of chronological, only Marv shows up in the second half of That Yellow Bastard, after he was shown dead.