Sinners

Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan sink their teeth into another successful collaboration.

Film Yap is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

---

As a big fan of director Ryan Coogler, his collaborations with star Michael B. Jordan, gangster flicks, vampire movies and black culture as a whole, I was eagerly anticipating “Sinners” (now in theaters). It’s a different film than what I was expecting, but that’s not altogether a bad thing. In fact, in this case it’s a very good thing.

It’s 1932 in the Mississippi Delta and twin brothers Smoke and Stack (both played by Jordan) have returned home after serving in World War I and doing gangster shit in Chicago.

The fellas are looking to open a juke joint with their ill-earned gains. They’re hoping that their guitar-slinging cousin Sammie aka Preacher Boy (talented newcomer Miles Caton), noted drunk pianist Delta Slim (a lively Delroy Lindo) and lovely songstress Pearline (Jayme Lawson) will play/sing there, provisions and signage will be provided by local merchants Bo (Yao) and Grace (Li Jun Li), Smoke’s estranged wife Annie (Wunmi Mosaku) will do the cooking and their buddy Cornbread (Omar Miller) will work the door.

Their establishment, much like the movie itself, is FUBU AF. They want sharecroppers to be able to come in and blow off some steam by letting go of the weights of the world stacked against them and spend whatever meager means they have with them – black money going into a black business.

Trouble rears its ugly head when Stack’s ex-girlfriend Mary (an electric and very grown up Hailee Steinfeld) turns up. Smoke and Stack grew up with Mary and her mother was essentially a mother to them, but Stack feels it’s unsafe for him to be with her … even if she’s one-eighth black.

Worse still are the folkie trio of Remmick (Jack O’Connell), Bert (Peter Dreimanis of the Canadian alt-rock band July Talk) and Joan (singer-actress Lola Kirke, my wife and I saw her open for Margo Price at The Vogue a few years back … she’s the goods) aka Peter, Paul and Scary. They say they only wanna play and pay, but must be invited in first.

Coogler is half a decade younger than me, but I suspect he has the same or an even greater reverence for Robert Rodriguez’s “From Dusk Till Dawn” that I do and probably saw it as many times in his teenage years as I did. He’s doing for black folks in the vampire mythos what Rodriguez did for Mexican folks … and a whole lot more.

“Sinners” tackles theology, racial relations in America, the power of music (most especially during what I’m assuming will be a very divisive sequence, but one which I found to be wholly creative and innovative) and cunnilingus (depicted and discussed). It’s a rock opera with not one but two really good and distinct performances from Jordan. You’ll also want to stick around for the closing credits as there’s a bonus scene that’s essential, changes the picture’s complexion, deepens its meaning and bumped this review up half a star.

I left “Sinners” with a hankering for fried catfish and Irish beer and a want to luxuriate in Coogler’s Dirty South once more. I suspect this one will grow in my estimation over repeated views.