Blowing up recently, this was a piece from Ryan Coogler that caught my eye but certainly seems to have been lighting up better than I expected. In fact, what I at first thought was going to be a fairly straightforward if well-made horror turned out to be more than that in fact—it’s not without reason that Sinners has been enticing folks around the world.
Most people know Coogler from Black Panther, or from 2015’s Creed—it’s actually strange to think that his filmography isn’t that long compared to others, yet by now he’s certainly made a splash. While I thought the first Black Panther was fine even if maybe still a bit constrained by the Marvel formula, this one is certainly all his, and that I always appreciate above most else.
Michael B. Jordan here plays our dual protagonists through the magic of digital editing—namely, the Moore brothers, a pair emerging from the Chicago underworld to return to their home community in Mississippi. One of their first stops is recruiting our other protagonist, young blues musician Sammie (Miles Caton), with the goal of setting up a juke joint club for members of their African-American community in the area. Jordan is of course effortlessly charismatic in the role, slipping into both well-suited hucksters all too well that the audience will be entranced by them as much as the characters—even if the film doesn’t hide their moral ambiguity by making it clear profit is their main concern, but that’s how you do good characterization right there.
Above all else I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the 1930s Deep South setting, steeped in the birthplace of the blues—in this place of sun-scorched cotton fields, still tilled by sharecroppers trying to find what bonds and means they can in a place still starkly divided and oppressed. Music is another surprisingly big theme here, which I also most definitely liked—it’s not for no reason that the blues can be called more dark and brutal than death metal, when it came from places wrought by slavery and struggles by survival…
The supporting cast all does a great job—for me Delroy Lindo stole the show as an elderly blues man recruited by the brothers for their entertainment, plied by alcohol, even if he does eventually rise above that. Hailee Stackfield is an old flame of theirs with her own secrets and past for the time, and Wunmi Mosaku, an estranged wife of one of the brothers who ends up knowing a lot more about what’s to come than others.
A lot of these relationships and people form the focus for most of the first half, along with once again a great soundtrack—all leading up to one surreal sequence that you’re either going to find awesome or indulgent, or in my case, both. Eventually, of course, we have Jack O’Connell interrupt matters as someone who enjoys the night in more ways than one, and this is where the whole film pivots—it’s easy to see why some have compared it to From Dusk Til Dawn for the new generation.
From there, it’s all action and fangs—and just as fun as what came before, with Coogler pulling off making another musical number actually fit in and seem sinister, to put it one way. Ultimately, if I have any one real criticism, it’s that the ending is rather stop-start, as we shunt from one thing suddenly to another to tie up loose ends, but everything other that is both entertaining and imparts all the messages it wants to. Beyond just music and horror, there’s something to be said here about communities, and the sacrifices one is willing to make for them--even our vampiric threat gets fleshed out in its own way.
So that leaves me as another one to heartily recommend Sinners, which pleasantly surprised me in more ways than I was expecting. After Nosferatu earlier this year it’s another one staking its claim—pardon me—into things vampire-related, but works nicely in its own way. As something produced in-house by Coogler’s own company, it’s something that proves that a classic can still come through enough passion—and for its macabre moments and dark themes, that’s one glimmer of positivity to take from this all…
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