By Brontë H. Lacsamana, Reporter
Movie Review
Sinners
Directed by Ryan Coogler
THE PULSATING force of blues music sets the tone for one of the best blockbusters of the year, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, which brings together the gruesomeness of vampire lore and the real horrors of so-called black assimilation in the Jim Crow South.
With this movie, Coogler successfully adds another feather to his cap of genre films exploring African American stories, coming from superhero favorite Black Panther and boxing action hero Creed — arguably even exceeding those two movies.
It presents a visceral alignment of cultures, from the takeover of a vampiric evil to the almost demonic, celebratory pull of blues music for black communities, grounded in voodoo folklore. All of this comes together to bring forth a nightmare of epic proportions set in 1930s Mississippi.
Sinners stars Michael B. Jordan in a dual role, as twin brothers Smoke and Stack, who open a jazz bar in their hometown down south as a fresh start coming from their troubled lives as gangsters in Chicago. Jordan plays the two well thanks to his intentional sense of physicality, illustrating with ease how Smoke is uptight while Stack is impulsive (a triumph akin to Robert Pattinson’s recent foray as Mickeys 17 and 18 in the sci-fi film Mickey 17).
Coogler uses the first hour of the film to build up their story and the context of the black community it’s set in, particularly through the lens of the twins’ young cousin Sammie (played by newcomer Miles Caton). His is a perspective that adds another layer, being a preacher’s son who defies the rigid confines of the church by exploring his true passion: blues music. The entire film is anchored in its reputation as something too powerful, too dangerous, as it challenges the false sense of safety that religion offers. Sammie’s brilliant guitar playing, showcased at various points, is a force of its own, backed by a riveting blues score by Ludwig Göransson (worth the price of admission to see and hear on the big screen with a solid sound system).
Everything kicks into full gear when the twins and their young cousin set up the bar, open all night for the local black community, unaware of an evil waiting to attack. Its cast of characters is just as memorable as the narrative — for one, Hailee Steinfeld shines as Mary, a white woman in love with Stack yet kept at a distance lest her 1/8 black heritage be discovered. Steinfeld is also 1/8 black in real life, through her grandfather — this is her only role to ever showcase it.
There’s also Wunmi Mosaku as Smoke’s lover Annie, who is immersed in local voodoo magic; Delroy Lindo as scene-stealing soulful blues musician (and drunkard!) Delta Slim; and Jack O’Connell as the Irish-born vampire Remmick, who leads a steadily growing pack to invade the juke joint. The scores of black bargoers who come in trucks from picking cotton on the farms have beautiful scenes of their own, the film highlighting their plight even as they are already considered “free” at this point in history.
Sinners has an enthralling pace, especially as night falls, when the music becomes relentless and the characters gradually meet their gruesome fates. Vampires and bloodshed aside, there’s one scene where the celebratory cultural landscape feels as if it pops out of the screen. The 1930s jazz bar becomes a stage for generations of music and dance, intermingling with the fascinating folkloric elements told in black history, reaching across time to grip your heart and awaken your spirit. It’s pulse-pounding, nightmarish, and reverent to the deep lineage of communities held together by music and spirituality.
The Asian characters, represented mainly by Chinese-American couple Bo and Grace Chow (played by Yao and Li Jun Li), show an oft-forgotten aspect of the times. They are a well-researched tidbit of decades-old Asian American presence in the south, speaking in southern accents and immersed in black communities as an overlooked minority. An underrated scene is when the cameras follow them walking to and from the “black side” of the road, where they live and keep goods, and the “white side,” where they run a grocery store.
Overall, Sinners is a film with a lot to say but doesn’t outright say any of it. Instead, it takes you through all the beats and the rhythms of its characters’ day-to-day lives, until everything escalates into a nightmare where racially fueled terror is transplanted by a supernatural evil. It’s a blockbuster that will actually get you feeling things, your pulse pounding with the music.
It can be described as a cautionary tale about how assimilation was a lie told so that blacks could continue to be exploited. It can also be described as an action-packed thriller where a badass group of people fight against an unstoppable evil. It’s a very American tale, driven forward by a boy’s passion for music that vampiric forces want to take for themselves. Exhilarating stuff.
MTRCB Rating: R-16
