By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Starring Michael B. Jordan, Miles Caton and Hailee Steinfeld
Written and directed by Ryan Coogler
Warner Bros.
During a brief animated prologue at the beginning of SINNERS, the narrator speaks of musicians whose work can conjure up spirits of the past and future and cross the line between the realms of the living and the dead. That’s a pretty good description of SINNERS itself, which masterfully evokes a past time through a modern lens and combines a deeply human story with jolts of the supernatural. After more than proving himself in the franchise worlds of BLACK PANTHER and CREED, Ryan Coogler’s first original feature since his breakout debut with FRUITVALE STATION is bursting with filmmaking passion and draws you into its story from the very first scenes.
It’s worth noting, since this is a horror website, that the genre elements don’t come into play for a while, and don’t fully take over the narrative until the second half. But the first is so rich in detail and character, I wouldn’t have minded if it never got scary. The setting is Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1932, and Coogler’s regular lead Michael B. Jordan plays twins Smoke and Stack, returning to their hometown after seven years away in Chicago. There, they associated with Al Capone and other mobsters, and now they’ve come back with blood and a big wad of cash on their hands. Their ambition is to open up a juke joint, and do so that very night, having secured as their location a disused mill whose white former owner unconvincingly reassures them, “The Klan don’t exist no more.”
The brothers will have more to worry about than the KKK, but that’s for later in the movie. During the lengthy setup, as Smoke and Stack put their plan into action and reconnect with past friends, lovers and acquaintances, Coogler and his standout craft team evoke the Jim Crow South to perfection, both conceptually and visually. Cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw, shooting on IMAX/65mm cameras (see this on the biggest screen possible), envelops you in rural atmosphere and, as the movie goes on, threatening darkness. Production designer Hannah Beachler and costume designer Ruth E. Carter, both Oscar-winners for the first BLACK PANTHER, create environments and outfits that are many and varied while feeling unified at the same time.
Roaming through it all is Jordan, who makes Smoke and Stack distinctive while evoking a deep bond between them forged by blood and shared history (they also fought in WWI together). Smoke is more of the charismatic but harsh businessman who can affably impart his well-honed negotiating talents to a young girl one moment, and the next shoot at a couple of old pals he catches unwittingly trying to rob his truck, while Stack is less ruthless but clearly enjoys the money (he dresses flashier and has a couple of gold-rimmed teeth). Either one could be lauded as one of the most riveting performances of the year; together, they make up a double act for the ages–one that forestalls any thought about how the twinning of Jordan was technically achieved.
The idea of duality and contrast extends to the supporting roles as well. The two key musicians Smoke and Stack recruit are their young cousin Sammie (singer Miles Caton making a hell of an acting debut), attempting to balance his love of the art with his duties to his preacher father, and Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo), a seen-it-all bluesman from way back. The brothers also rekindle old sparks with a pair of different married women: Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) and Pearline (Jayme Lawson), who nonetheless are both strongly attracted to the freedom from wedded bondage the juke joint represents. Very much a singular presence is Annie (the always welcome Wunmi Musaku from HIS HOUSE), a spiritualist and Hoodoo practitioner who’s one of the few people around whom Smoke will let his guard down. Just as important a “character” in SINNERS is its music, as vintage and original songs help evoke the era, combined with Ludwig Göransson’s marvelously expressive score.
That aforementioned notion of music being in tune with the occult comes into literal play once the juke joint opens for business, and evil soon comes calling. SINNERS is set just a little too early to cite the legend of Robert Johnson meeting the devil at the crossroads, though this scenario is in the same key, and a potent scene at about the 40-minute mark sets up the specific nature of said evil. For those who might not be familiar with this from the second trailer (the far less revealing first one is embedded below), consider this a SPOILER ALERT for the rest of this review, with the assurance that the horror content definitely delivers. This despite the fact that the movie heads into somewhat more conventional territory at this point; a simple reading would be that this is Coogler’s FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, as a drama centered on criminal brothers gives way to a vampiric siege on an all-night establishment.
By this point, however, we’ve become so invested with the ensemble Coogler and his cast have established that the question of who will survive the night remains a gripping one. The writer/director employs some tried-and-true tropes, like vampires having to be invited in, and makes them work via the way they’re personalized here. And even as the threat masses outside, the interpersonal relationships and conflicts continue to play out inside; there’s a lot going on in SINNERS, with Coogler keeping it pitched at full throttle throughout. He certainly doesn’t go suggestive with the vampires themselves and their violence, as Mike Fontaine (THE BATMAN, TRUE DETECTIVE) and Kevin Wasner (THE WALKING DEAD, X) contribute vivid and vicious makeup effects.
There are a few key moments when Coogler’s thematic ambitions lead to choices that some might find distracting. One long, technically impressive traveling shot through the juke joint makes the point about music’s ability to cross timelines, though at the brief expense of the period spell the movie casts. And a latecoming violent setpiece expresses with blunt force an idea that SINNERS has already established quite well subtextually. Still, such flourishes, excesses even, are to be expected when a filmmaker is given carte blanche by a studio to bring his vision to the screen, and if SINNERS is a little messy, it is also a supremely confident, consistently captivating achievement.
