Past, Present, and Future Collide in Coogler’s Otherworldly Supernatural Spellbinder Sinners
There is a scene smack dab in the middle of Sinners where I felt my soul elevate to a new plane of existence. I was filled with a sensation of mesmerized euphoria as I watched it play out, the whole sequence a tornado of music, performance, cinematic bravado, historical lucidity, cultural evolution, and communal bliss unlike anything I could have anticipated. For one brief, shimmering metaphorical second, every character up on the screen felt their cares evaporate and their worries fade. Right then and there, everything was perfect.
This is the unforgettable turning point in writer-director Ryan Coogler’s virtuoso opus. The dreams of rabble-rousing (and former Chicago enforcers for Al Capone) twin brothers Smoke and Stack (Michael B. Jordan) come to fruition. They have returned to their small Mississippi hometown and have successfully opened a juke joint in an old abandoned sawmill. The place overflows with music and mysticism. And when their talented cousin Sammie, a.k.a. Preacher Boy (Miles Caton), finally picks up his guitar and plays the Blues in front of a rowdy audience? What happens next defies belief as past, present, and future all collide in a steamy orgy of physical and emotional rapture that’s nothing less than otherworldly.
There will be some out there who try to dismiss what Coogler is doing here as a messy horror riff that pulls from well-known genre favorites like Bill Gunn’s Ganja & Hess, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, Walter Hill’s Crossroads, Alan Parker’s Angel Heart, James Bond III’s Def by Temptation, and Kasi Lemmons’s Eve’s Bayou. Heck, there are even elements straight out of Tom Holland’s Fright Night, Bernard Rose’s Candyman, Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn, and Jordan Peele’s Get Out.
But dismiss what the talented Fruitvale Station, Creed, and Black Panther filmmaker has accomplished with this devastatingly focused and ferociously confident rage against the machine at your peril. Sinners is a masterfully controlled explosion of music, culture, terror, family, history, and love that overwhelms the senses. Coogler took me on a ride that kept me on pins and needles. At times the whole thing reminded me of Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Tales of Hoffman, Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and Brian De Palma’s Phantom of the Paradise, the director wearing his inspirations on his sleeve yet still manufacturing an emotionally astute atom bomb of a melodrama that is absolutely and intelligently unique in and of itself.
The technical facets are undeniably sensational. Coogler reteams with several of his favorite colleagues, including costume designer Ruth E. Carter, production designer Hannah Beachler, and editor Michael P. Shawver, all of whom help the director create a moodily lived-in 1930s Mississippi world that’s intimately authentic. There were moments when I could feel the southern sun burning my skin and tufts of snowy cotton clogging my sinuses. It’s all incredible.
Then there is the cinematography. Working with IMAX cameras and shot entirely on film, Autumn Durald Arkapaw (The Last Showgirl) crafts a rhapsodic visual whirligig that is as ominous as it is joyous. Fear and longing drip from every corner of the frame. But so does love. So does desire. Most of all, so does hope. Even when jugulars are severed and bodies get riddled with bullets, Arkapaw maintains an aura of optimism amidst all the violence, tragedy, suffering, and pain. How she does it, I do not know, but those sensations still come through loud and clear. It’s an unbelievable achievement.
But this film would be nothing without the music. Coogler and composer Ludwig Göransson know each other quite well at this point, the pair heading down a path of sonic dexterity that’s reminiscent of the early days of Steven Spielberg and John Williams. From Fruitvale Station to Creed to the two Black Panther adventures, they refuse to repeat themselves, and that is certainly the case with their latest collaboration. Orchestral arias, Blues and R&B anthems, ancient African rhythms, toe-tapping Scottish jigs, and modern pop, rock, industrial, electronic, and rap all bang into one seamlessly intoxicating soundscape. I was blown away.
I’m not talking about the plot other than what I’ve already vaguely alluded to and also inferred by mentioning all of those other motion pictures in passing. What I will say is that the picture’s ensemble is universally superb. Newcomer Caton is a bona fide star in the making, while Delroy Lindo, Li Jun Li, Hailee Steinfeld, Yao, Omar Benson Miller, and Jayme Lawson all leave lasting marks on the proceedings. As for Jack O’Connell’s despicably smirking villain, while there’s not a lot to the character other than he’s evil with a capital “E”, he still makes the most of every second of screentime. This guy is like something out of an EC Comics story, and I mean that as a compliment.
Then there is the tandem of Jordan and Wunmi Mosaku, both of whom give the performances of their respective careers. Jordan mesmerizes in his dual role. With minimal hair and makeup differences between Smoke and Stack, and with an admittedly massive assist from Carter’s crackerjack costuming, it is incumbent on him to create two distinctive personalities utilizing physicality, facial movements, and vocal inflections alone. Jordan does this with aplomb. There was never a beat where I could not tell the two brothers apart. He brings each man to life with shocking, easygoing vitality, so much so there were precious few instances where I could peel my eyes away from him.
Those instances when I did? Almost all were courtesy of Mosaku. The His House and Loki scene-stealer gives a performance of such deep, unfathomably nuanced empathy there were multiple instances where she brought an elegiac tear to my eye. Her character, a hoodoo mystic and culinary impresario with heartbreaking ties to one of the brothers, meant so much to me. Mosaku is a continual revelation, and every scene she has with Jordan is a cause for celebration.
Sinners is one of 2025’s best films. More to the point, it’s one of the best I’m going to see this decade. Coogler has crafted something special. See it at once.
– Review reprinted courtesy of the SGN in Seattle
Film Rating: 4 (out of 4)
