Arts & Culture

What: Sinners
Where: In theatres
What: Movie, 137 mins
When: Fri., April 18
Genre: Action, Drama, Horror, Thriller
Rating: NNNNN (out of 5)
Why you should watch: A hypnotic tale for the senses, Sinners is a powerful celebration of music and freedom infused with a unique spin on the vampire trope, tailor-made for the big screen.

FOR SINNERS director Ryan Coogler, this film feels like a long time coming. After announcing himself with Fruitvale Station in 2013, Coogler showed his ability to craft emotionally powerful blockbusters with Creed (2015) and both Black Panther (2018) and its sequel, Wakanda Forever (2022).

With Sinners, Coogler has made his first film not based on an existing story or franchise. But he has lost none of his ability to blend emotional depth with kinetic action sequences, crafting an exciting blockbuster that celebrates Black communities and the music and freedom within them.

Sinners follow twin brothers, Smock and Sack (Michael B. Jordan playing both), former prohibition-era gangsters returning to their hometown of Clarksdale, Miss., to open a juke joint, where, over the course of one day and night, they become locked in a fight with supernatural evil. Though it’s billed as a horror movie, Coogler has little interest in horror set pieces for the first half of its runtime. Instead, he focuses on Sammie (Miles Caton, excellent in his film debut), an aspiring blues musician, and building up the Clarksdale community through him and in the eyes of the twins. This allows Coogler to spread his wings as a director, using the Mississippi expanse to capture glittery sunsets and never-ending fields similar to a classic western. When Coogler shifts to more intimate settings, such as the town stores or a small shop in the forest, cinematographer Autumn Derald (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, The Last Showgirl) allows for natural sunlight to illuminate the frame, turning this community into a small sun-kissed slice of paradise where everyone is like family.

It is in these early stages when Jordan affirms his ability to lead a film and craft two unique characters. He is especially strong as Smoke, allowing him to show off his dramatic and emotional range as he comes to terms with returning to a home that harbours past pain. His Stack is full of charisma in a role that is effortlessly cool, forming two lead performances that work in perfect harmony.

But despite the film’s relaxed early pacing, supernatural trouble eventually arrives in the form of the vampire Remmick (Jack O’Connell), as the film shifts away from a purely soulful drama to action horror. Yet the film never loses any of its heart. This tonal shift is a gradual one that never feels abrupt, and the horror set pieces with the supernatural antagonists are punctuated by scenes of care and emotion between the surviving leads, making us see them as more than just cannon fodder for the vampires.

This film’s emotional core is a celebration of blues music and the freedom that comes with it. Sammie is an aspiring blues musician, despite his father Jedidiah (Saul Williams) warning him that it’s the devil’s music. Yet Sammie ignores this, his guitar being his main source of freedom and power in a world that doesn’t always provide that to him. Through music, he unites the town’s Black community, even if just for a moment, while the spectre of racism still looms large. In the film’s crowning moment, Sammie brings the house down with one of the most unique music performances ever put to film in a sequence that pays homage to Black music — past, present and future — showing its power to unite and provide freedom. It is unlikely to be topped by anything better on the big screen all year, all filmed in a brilliant one-take by Coogler, capturing the music’s fiery passion.

While the action set pieces are wonderfully shot with a kinetic energy that allows you to feel every shot and punch, the film’s highlights are each musical set piece. But, in a world of racism, “white folks like the blues just fine; just not the people who make it,” as Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) laments, and the Remmick comes to embody this notion. Remmick is intoxicated by Sammie’s blues, and desires them for himself. Remmick embodies many classic vampire tropes (no sunlight in the house, repelled by holy water, killed by a stake through the heart), yet his characterisation gives a whole new take on one of cinema’s greatest supernatural foes. Remmick does not just feed off the blood and souls of his victims; he colonizes them, taking their memories and, most importantly for him, their music, a unique take on the question of cultural appropriation. The twins and the others protecting Sammie from the evil forces become protectors of a way of life, music and the freedom it can bring.

The film has minor flaws. With the shift to vampires and shootouts in the latter half, a few subplots are left underdeveloped, especially the romantic ones. Hailee Steinfeld’s Mary and her relationship with the twins is the film’s biggest miss, failing to build on the early conflict between them before becoming entirely forgotten. A romantic subplot between Sammie and a married woman (Jayme Lawson) looking for freedom also never quite comes full circle.

However, these flaws don’t diminish what a hypnotic visual experience Sinners is. Coogler crafts a perfect big-screen epic. If some characters are underutilized, he never loses sight of the community and family at the centre of the film. He wants to celebrate every character not as vampire victims but as a community that tasted freedom as they danced to Sammie’s music. Powered by the incredible Ludwig Göransson (Oppenheimer, Black Panther) score that demonstrates the power of music, Coogler has made one of the most original blockbusters in years.