Review 776: Sinners

Sinners is a glorious, engrossing experience, a high octane, genre bending concoction of horror, music and some heavily profound social commentary under the surface.

Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers Smoke & Stack (Michael B. Jordan) return to their hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi to start again and open up a juke joint where black citizens of  can gather to dance and fellowship in their sacred space. They enlist their cousin Sammie (newcomer Miles Caton) to play guitar as well as other friends and family who can help on opening night, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.

Watching this film, you get the sense that Ryan Coogler is making a love letter to the Blues. As the bodycount rises, Sinners shows it has more on its mind than just vampires and is a film about survival, power, collective silence, black culture and Identity in the 30s as well as touching on some weighty themes of faith, community, heritage, exploitation & freedom. And MCU fans will surely get a kick out of seeing Killmonger, Kate Bishop & Hunter B-15 from Loki in a film from the director of Black Panther.  

The theme of religion/faith is very prominent,            

You can feel Ryan Coogler channeling his inner Tarantino throughout this film; Sinners is a film of two halves, it’s a period piece first and a vampire horror film second. The films usage of Vampires is more complicated than the traditional metaphor it typically embodies. Remick's clan of vampires seek to put an end to pain and suffering. The film portrays Vampirism as assimilation in its purist form. By giving into temptation, the community is offered a shield from racism, bigotry and violent discrimination but they'll loose its spiritual and cultural freedom in return. 

Music is key to the identity of Sinners, whether it be the outstanding score by Ludwig Goransson or the individual soundtrack featuring songs performed by blues musicians. Coogler uses it as shorthand 

Michael B. Jordan (in a duel performance) delivers one of, if not his best performance to date playing the Smokestack brothers, and helping to make each of them feel distinct.                                                    Smoke & Stack have established a formidable name for themselves after working for gangsters in Chicago. They enlisted in the service to fight in WW I for their country, they saw it as a way out for the brothers who hoped that it would guarantee some degree respect and acceptance not previously afforded to them. But during the war, they became tools for the government and when they got back from the war, nothing really changed. They moved to Chicago where the most viable career path for their skills was a life of crime working for Al Capone until eventually stealing from him. They hoped to carve out their piece of the American Dream so they could bring it back to their hometown and restore a sense of hope and community. While they're on this shared journey, they experience their own respective hardships: For Smoke it's the loss of the son he had with his estranged wife Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), for Stack it was a romantic relationship with a half white woman named Mary (a lovely Hailee Steinfeld). "Chicago ain't sh*t but Mississippi with tall buildings instead of plantations" they tell cousin Sammie (Miles Caton in his film debut)

In Sinners, The American Dream is a lie: Smoke & Stack feel jaded by the concept because of all they've experienced and how far they've progressed in life. They understand that the only people in America who are afforded the dream are the ones who go out and take it. So why shouldn't they be allowed to take it themselves when their fellow Americans do the same. They know that freedom is a lie, that you either assimilate or resist and neither sounds like a particularly appealing option. By setting up this Juke joint, they prop up black art and culture and create a safe space where their community can thrive. The Juke joint is very much a character in of itself because it's a black-owned business that employs black and other marginalised workers made for black patrons. Over the course of the film, it becomes clear that these aren’t evil men, they just see believe that they are and push everyone away so they can all live a better life.

Unfortunately, it turns out that the property owners who leased the land to the brothers are white men who happen to be members of the KKK who see this as an opportunity to get the entire Black population under one roof where they can easily dispose of them.

Both of them feel powerless and trapped to uproot a system where all the money in the world can't buy them what they desire most of all. While they may have done bad things in Chicago, it was ultimately in service of helping their people back home.

During the opening night at the juke joint, we learn that Mary genuinely loves Stack and wants to be with him, but he wants her to have a better and safer life without him.  

Annie knows Smoke; she will do what he needs. Annie is also a Hoodoo practitioner 

The Stack brothers Sammie is the centre of many of Sinners weighty themes. As a preachers' son and a talented Blue's guitarist 

Jack O'Connell (who I did not know was in this film) is playing evil vampire Remick who is also an Irish Immigrant; he's just sick. You get the sense that Remick feels like he can only express his culture - his Irishness - in insolation. He promises that succumbing to their fangs will lead to an eternal life of fellowship and love for all regardless of their colour. And at first glance, it seems  The downside is that it all comes at the expense of cultural autonomy