Review 776: Sinners

Sinners is a glorious, engrossing experience, a high octane, genre bending concoction of horror, music and 

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 the blues and story about black culture and Identity in the 30s and touches on some weighty themes of faith, community, heritage, exploitation & freedom.

Smoke & Stack have established a formidable name for themselves after working for gangsters in Chicago. They're WW I vets who enlisted in the service to fight 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 were mearly 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). Both brothers feel trapped and powerless   "Chicago ain't sh*t but Mississippi with tall buildings instead of of plantations." they tell cousin Sammie. 

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 

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.

Annie knows Smoke; she will do what he needs. 

You get the sense that Remick feels like he can only express his culture - his Irishness - in insolation. 

You can feel Ryan Coogler channeling his inner Tarantino throughout this film