Movie Review: ‘Sinners’

Plot: In 1932 identical twins Elijah “Smoke” and Elias “Stack” Moore (Michael B. Jordan) return to their hometown in the Mississippi Delta just at the tail-end of Prohibition. Using stolen money from their former employer, gangster Al Capone, the WWI veterans seek to open a juke joint for the local black community. After purchasing an old sawmill from a member of the Ku Klux Klan and enlisting the musical talents of their cousin Sammie “Preacher Boy” Moore (Miles Caton), the duo plan an immediate grand opening despite dealing with former flames Annie (Wunmi Mosaku) and Mary (Hailee Steinfeld). However, unbeknownst to them, a vampire named Remmick (Jack O’Connell) has set his sights on the twins, their music, and their community. What ensues is a bloody confrontation, and not every soul will survive the night.

Review: I’ve been thinking a lot about authorship and authenticity lately. There’s numerous reasons as to why the theater experience has suffered financially over the last half decade. Pundits, studio execs, and audiences point to everything from poor marketing, to Covid, to an evolution in what constitutes entertainment media. Certainly all of those rationale and others play a factor. Yet the one I think gets overlooked most often is that so many stories lack a cohesive vision. They lack authorship. Big budget pabulum made by committees looking to exploit IP and maintain brand recognition rules the day. The problem is audiences are smarter than venture capitalist anti-art douche bros give them credit for. As filmmaker and YouTube streamer Robert Meyer Burnett is wont to say, “the currency of our current age is authenticity.” People aren’t showing up and spending their hard earned dollars because what they are getting at the multi-plex lacks authenticity.

That is why I found it so utterly refreshing to sit down and watch auteur Ryan Coogler’s Sinners last Thursday. There’s many factors that make Sinners a poignant, brilliant, and significant film and I’ll definitely address them in this review. However, the crux of why Sinners succeeds on multiple levels comes from the authorship of writer/director Ryan Coogler. Sinners is a deliberate, unique, and singular work of art that simultaneously succeeds as a commentary on the black experience and as a wildly entertaining vampire film. I connected with this movie (as have others) because Sinners is relentlessly authentic. Even if you don’t enjoy the movie, you’d be hard pressed to deny Coogler’s stunning directorial work here.

Just as important as Coogler’s steady hand in Sinners, is the significance and impact of music (specifically Blues) to the tale. I know the cliché “the music is a character in this movie” gets thrown around a lot but…the music is a character in this movie. Two-time Oscar winning composer Ludwig Goransson (Black Panther, Oppenheimer) delivers his best and most soulful work to date. It’s a scintillating celebration of how much Blues music means to the black experience but also the transformative power of music as a whole, and how it transcends time and environment. This notion is reinforced by two significant musical beats in Sinners captured by the exceptional cinematography of DP Autumn Durald Arkapaw. One is a demented Riverdance-esque scene led by O’Connell’s Remmick. The other is one of the bravest artistic choices I’ve ever seen in a movie. Using a progressive tracking shot and Preacher Boy’s vocals as an anchor point, the scene literally takes you on a black music tour through time. While the choice may not connect with everyone, it definitely worked for me.

Much like Christopher Nolan, Coogler manages to attract significant talent to his orbit. Oscar nominee Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) delivers her sexiest, spiciest, most adult role to date as Stack’s ex-flame Mary. I’ll never regard Steinfeld the same way again. Meanwhile, Wunmi Mosaku stuns as Annie, Smoke’s estranged wife who dabbles in the occult. Long-time actor Delroy Lindo sizzles and delights as the soulful and hilarious alcoholic piano player Delta Slim, in a role that may net him his first Academy Award nomination. Even minor characters like Omar Benson Miller’s Cornbread and Li Jun Li’s Grace Chow get their moments to shine

Yet of all the supporting cast, Jack O’Connell and Miles Caton’s roles stand out the most. O’Connell’s Remmick turns out to be the most vicious, devious, and bloodthirsty bloodsucker I’ve seen in awhile. How he tries to slyly entangle himself in Smoke and Stack’s juke joint and tempts and torments its occupants is a thing of twisted evil beauty. What’s fascinating is that somehow Coogler and O’Connell are able to present Remmick as a victim but not as a sympathetic villain. To put it another way, the abused tend to abuse others. However, it is Miles Caton’s Preacher Boy that knocked me on my posterior. Although Michael B. Jordan anchors the lead performances, it’s Caton’s Preacher Boy that is the beating heart of Sinners. I am stunned that this is his first movie, and his riveting acting performance is only equaled by his pitch perfect guitar and vocal performance. Trust me when I say that Caton’s star is about to burst through the stratosphere.

And as for Michael B. Jordan? Quite frankly this is his best performance to date. Or more accurately performances. He’s created two distinct characters in Smoke and Stack. Smoke comes off as the more stoic and realistic brother, not afraid to be blunt and if the need arises, violent. Stack however is the more gregarious, jovial, and energetic of the two. He’d rather crack a joke or make love than worry about the specifics of business. Yet the performances are so seamless and the brotherly love so authentic, I often forgot it was the same person. Despite being criminals, I couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of empathy and compassion for both brothers, particularly Smoke. They are both carrying a degree of trauma both personal and generational.

Trauma in fact is one of the many themes that underscore Sinners, whether that’s generational racial trauma or deeply personal physical and emotional trauma that the Smoke/Stack brothers experienced from the fists of their father. Yet Sinners is also a movie about the cultural appropriation of black culture and entertainment by white people and the institutional racist roadblocks that prevent blacks from carving out their own portion of success. There’s also a persistent conversation about the dichotomy of Southern Christianity and the “sinful” appeal of Blues music and alcohol. Make no mistake, the fact that this film is set in the Jim Crow south and the villains are white vampires–creatures that literally suck the life force out of their black victims–is not a coincidence. Yet none of these themes bludgeon you over the head, none of them are presented in a pedantic manner that runs the risk of virtue signaling. The themes are there if you want to examine and unpack them, but even if you don’t, Sinners still works as a rousingly entertaining vampire flick.

When it comes down to where the fangs meet the carotid, I am simply overjoyed that a true auteur like Ryan Coogler is out there doing God’s work. While not perfect, Sinners is still a staggering achievement that you should see with a theater full of people on the biggest screen possible. Give in to the temptation and see this movie immediately.

My rating system:

1 God Awful Blind Yourself With Acid Bad

2 Straight Garbage

3 Bad

4 Sub Par

5 Average

6 Ok

7 Good

8 Great

9 Excellent

10 A Must See

Masterpiece

Sinners: 10/10