Sinners - Review

Rating: 5 out of 5

I ALWAYS love a film that can both set new benchmarks within the genre it represents as well as confidently transcend that genre. Sinners does just that.

Ryan Coogler's labour of love stands as a terrific horror movie in its own right while feeling like so much more. It's a commentary on the Black experience in America, including racism, as well as a love letter to music and, most notably, the Blues. It's rich in conversational possibility given the provocative way in which it confronts these issues, while allowing plenty of room for interpretation.

Set in the Mississippi Delta in 1932, the film essentially follows twin brothers Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B Jordan) as they return to their hometown to open a Black owned juke joint, following stints away serving in the trenches of WWI and then working for Al Capone in Chicago.

In doing so, they must confront the loves they previously left behind... for Smoke, a devoutly religious hoodoo practitioner named Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), with whom he shared and lost a child, and for Stack, a white woman with Black ancestry named Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), who still feels closer to the Black community than the white community she has married into.

As Smoke and Stack prepare for opening night, they also enlist the support of key musicians, the most notable of whom is a young Blues guitarist named Sammie (Miles Caton), whose preacher father, Jedidiah (Saul Williams), believes his music playing will lead him to the Devil. There's also an ageing piano and harmonica player named Slim (Delroy Lindo), a bouncer named Cornbread (Omar Benson Miller) and Chinese immigrants Bo (Yao) and Grace (Li Jun Li), who provide much of the food and drink from their successful stores.

All convene upon Smoke and Stack's new venue for a night of music, laughter, celebration and debauchery, unaware that their revelry has attracted the attention of a centuries old Irish vampire, Remmick (Jack O'Connell), and his new entourage, who determine to feast upon the party-goers.

Part of the success of Coogler's film lies in the writer-director's decision to allow plenty of time for the story to breathe. He doesn't rush into the horror, opting to spend time among his characters and really explore the issues inherent throughout his intelligent, multi-faceted screenplay.

And, in many ways, the build-up is more enjoyable and enriching than the actual horror itself.

It's here that Coogler affords viewers the chance to really invest in the human drama as well as the themes he would like you to explore.

Hence, examinations of both the Black and immigrant experience offer insight and pose questions, while feeling authentic in the way they are depicted. Coogler's film is set amid the cotton fields of Mississippi, where his Black folk are following in the footsteps of their parents and grandparents in picking cotton and trying to meet their quotas, all while living in the shadow of the Ku Klux Klan and still struggling to make ends meet. Their homes are barns, they have no shoes and life is hard.

It's here that Coogler examines notions of freedom and what that constitutes. For while his drama unfolds 67 years from the official end of slavery in America, he rightly asks audiences to consider how much life has progressed.

For Smoke and Stack, this question is something they have been confronting their entire lives, from the moment they departed for Europe having fled an abusive father. But while they have both an infamy that makes them feared and revered, and the cash means to buy and start their own business, the suspicion is that they have only come by these means by ripping off their former gangster employers.

Hence, every step away from poverty towards success and so-called freedom comes at a potential cost, which is also true for young Sammie, whose own fate appears intrinsically linked with the Devil, or whatever evil that manifests itself in.

And it's perhaps given the suffering his characters have previously, and will eventually endure, that Coogler affords them so much fun on the big night in question. For Sinners also seeks to celebrate the music that informs it - with both Ludwig Goransson's Blues-infused score and its supporting songs alive with raw energy and sexuality. They deserve to be seen and heard on the big screen.

One sequence, in particular, finds Sammie showcasing his talents with a Blues number that eventually morphs into its own sweeping arrangement, incorporating many of the genres that Blues inspired, from rock and funk to hip-hop and country. It's a virtuoso sequence that takes viewers on a whirlwind musical history journey, infused with both past and present dancers. And it marks the film's transition from drama to full blown horror.

For it's not long afterwards that the vampires arrive and all hell [literally] breaks loose, in no holds barred fashion. Admittedly, its depiction of vampires and their descent on a bar owes more than a passing visual resemblance to From Dusk Till Dawn. But while that film embraced its schlock and grindhouse elements, Sinners still manages to operate both as the horror film it is and the intelligent drama that co-exists.

Hence, it's here characters are forced to confront their loyalties and their real feelings, while confronting both their own past and that of their ancestors. And it's here that Coogler, again, allows room for informed discussion. Do the vampires serve as a metaphor for modern America? For capitalism? For the theft of rights and freedoms that have been so hard fought to achieve? And where does true horror lie: in the supernatural or in the hearts of men?

It's here that another element of the immigrant experience is explored, via Remmick's Irish routes, which opens a gateway into the Irish experience.

Yet simultaneously, Coogler also has fun playing around within the horror genre. A sequence involving garlic eating, in a bid to flush out any potential vampires within their midst, nods to the classic horror of John Carpenter's The Thing, while sex plays a key part in the fates of several characters... just as it does in so many slasher-style horrors of years past (from Halloween to Scream). Crucially, however, none of the characters that Coogler has taken the time to build feel cheap or expendable. You'll be rooting for all to survive, even though very few can.

But this also enables the film to succeed on an emotional level, too, with the resolution to several of the story arcs feeling genuinely powerful (and in some cases tearful). It's another of the film's considerable achievements that so many of its characters will live long in the memory, well beyond the final credits.

Needless to say, the performances are uniformly excellent - with Jordan excelling in both roles, Steinfeld combining strength with vulnerability, and Caton standing out as the defiant Sammie. It's worth staying throughout the final credits to view the continuation of his journey.

Coogler, for his part, ensures that everyone gets a moment or three to shine. He doesn't short-change any of his performers, his creative team, or his audience - treating one and all with intelligence and respect.

The overall result is a film that looks set to become an American classic. It certainly deserves to.

Coogler has already impressed with all of his films, from the indie origins of Fruitvale Station (another masterpiece) through the blockbuster successes of his Creed and Black Panther films (which married spectacle with intelligence and real emotional investment). Sinners embraces all of the qualities that made those films so successful and doubles down. It is, without question, a must-see masterpiece. 

For a deep dive into the added meaning behind Sinners, click here.

Certificate: 15

Running time: 2hrs 17mins