To start off, Sinners is such a fantastic movie. Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan are surely going down in the director/actor relationship hall of fame. This definitely deserves it’s place on the mantel next to the Creed series and Black Panther. It’s not often that I’m able to turn my film brain off and just enjoy a movie but I found that to be the case here. It really wasn’t until Sammie’s performance in the club when I actually noticed the filmmaking (but I’ll get into that later). Sinners isn’t without flaw but it’s easily looked over with excellent performances, fantastic score, and a strong message.

From the moment it begins, it hooks you. From then on, you’re taken on an incredible journey over the course of the last 24 hours of twins Smoke and Stack and their mission to start a Juke joint in rural Mississippi. Michael B. Jordan already has a difficult task of playing two personalities, one reserved and one more loose, and he does it flawlessly. What’s solidifies it is the costumes for the characters. Smoke (reserved) wears the color blue while Stack (loose) wears red, a great way of reflecting the nature of the individual. Hailee Steinfeld also delivers a fresh performance as Stack’s ex-girlfriend, Mary, with lines that will certainly drop your jaw. This is Miles Caton’s acting debut and what an incredible way to debut. While his acting performance as Sammie alone isn’t all that memorable, it’s his incredible musical performances that really sell him. He has a scene early on where Stack asks him to play a song and Michael B. Jordan’s reaction was equal to mine. Delroy Lindo’s Delta Slim arguably steals the show with some excellent lines ranging from tear-jerking to gut-busting. The rest of the cast, Jack O’Connell, Tenaj L. Jackson, Li Jun Li, and Omar Benson Miller, are also excellent. Everyone brings their all to this movie and it shows.

Ryan Coogler is certainly nailing down his dream team as he partners once again with Ludwig Göransson. As a sucker for film scores, the music alone was enough to bring me to the theater for a second time. As I said earlier, Ludwig Göransson KILLS it. He constantly surprises me with his pure musical knowledge. Some composers have a style that they stick to, which is totally fine, but Göransson’s style is literally anything. To give you an idea, he’s probably most well known for Black Panther and The Mandalorian. In this film, he not only captures the vibes of rural Mississippi in the 30’s, but also makes you fall in love with the blues. I’m not sure how much Göransson played a part in the selection of the film’s pieces, but the vampires that come in also have a couple Irish songs that deserve praise as well.

Sammie’s. Juke joint. Performance. That whole segment absolutely blew me away. Sammie performs a blues song at the club that (for reasons explained in the film’s opening) begins to mix with other genres of black-led music including modern hip hop and tribal drums, all while showing people in costume from those time periods. There’s also a nod to the two Chinese characters with some Chinese dancers mixed in. Not only is it a great blend of black culture, but also the way it’s filmed is mind-blowing. It’s a one shot, so the camera floats around the whole room, ensuring that we don’t miss a thing. It all culminates with a symbolic burning down of the mill. Best scene of the film by far.

Now my one complaint with the film is also one of the main plot points: the vampires. The vampire plot is introduced out of nowhere (quite literally) with Remmick (Jack O’Connell) falling into frame. It’s also, in my opinion, introduced really late with about 45 min-1 hour of the runtime left out of a 2+ hour runtime. What bugs me is that the film is this really interesting story about gangster twins starting a club, but then devolves into a cheesy vampire action movie with an almost jarring tonal shift. It’s full of classic vampire tropes of garlic, wooden stakes to the heart, and needing to be invited in. The latter gets eye rolling at one point where three times in a row, the main characters are almost tricked into being lured outside. While Jack O’Connell does a good job delivering the main theme of the movie: exploitation of black people and culture, I found the rest of the vampire plot quite unnecessary. There’s a scene at the end that involves a shootout with the KKK and I felt like that could’ve been the basis for making the film more grounded. Overall, it isn’t bad, it’s just an interesting choice that seemed a little tacked on.

Sinners is an absolutely astounding film. Not only did the cast, director, and composer bring their A-game, but everyone involved. Their passion for this film truly shows through and they should be proud of the film they created. If you haven’t seen the film yet, please go see it while it’s still in theaters. I promise this is not one you’ll want to wait to stream. Otherwise, your house may just catch fire during Sammie’s performance.

To see what I rated the film, check out my Letterboxd.