Sinners Movie Review: Rousing, layered and thoroughly entertaining
Sinners Movie Review(4 / 5)
The biggest strength of Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is how it has a lot to say but it also somehow works as a singularly focused genre film. While it is unmistakably a vampire film set in 1930s America, Coogler stretches the extent of his period setting and the genre to speak about several themes, including the nuances of racial subjugation, the intoxicating power of art, exploitation of labour, loss of individuality, Black heritage, the emotional roots of Blues music, and more. In a way, the film operates like a violent coming-of-age story of ‘Preacherboy’ Sammie Moore, played by an impressive Miles Canton. Throughout the course of the night, Sammie discovers the harsh reality of the Black experience in America, goes through a crash course on dating women, locks on the direction for his future, has his belief system shattered and possibly reshaped or reinforced, and the extent of his passion for music is tested. His cousins, notorious gangster twins Smoke and Stack, played by Michael B Jordan in a dual role, return home to open a juke joint and ask Sammie to perform on the opening night. As old connections are reforged and jubilations rock the night, trouble comes in the form of a vampire attack.
Director: Ryan Coogler
Cast: Michael B Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton
Music is an integral part of the film, even wonderfully interwoven with its core themes. The film begins with a narration of how throughout history and across cultures, some have the ability to heal people through music, and with their soulful songs, are able to tear down the veil between the past, present, and future, which often invites demonic entities. Towards the middle of the film, this idea is hammered home with a brilliant visual demonstration. We dreamily swivel through the juke joint as the place brims to the fill with soulful music, inebriation at its ecstatic high, and every foot tapping. And slowly, with hypnotic allure, Coogler shows us how art has the power to pull past, present, and future to a single point, like how a cyclone pulls together waves from different directions into its eye. This is perhaps the moment when Sinners etches itself an indelible mark in cinematic memory. While this is the most visually captivating moment of the film, Sinners has many such scenes that casually strut away from its central storyline to paint a larger picture and espouse grander themes and ideas. One such moment is when an old alcoholic musician named Delta Slim recounts the harrowing tale of his friend being lynched. As he finishes the story, and as he winces in pain at the resurgence of this bitter memory, he immediately swerves into a humming, and then into a Blues number. This, along with Slim’s earlier comment to Sammie about how their ancestors brought Blues from their home, pointing to their African roots, leaves a deep impact in us about the significance of Blues music to Black heritage and how it is born as a way to deal with pain.
Sinners is replete with pulsating action and thrilling moments thanks to plenty of vampire-assisted gore. We also get philosophically dense conversations between vampires and humans. A vampire finally gets a hold of Sammy and as the Preacherboy desperately starts reciting Bible verses, the vampire joins him and then points to what he observes as absurdities and hypocrisies in theological safety nets. Almost every character in the film has given into a sin of some kind, whether it's a life of crime and violence, alcoholism, or infidelity. Ironically, Sammie is told that his passion for music is the pathway to the devil. Even after a close shave with demonic entities, Sammie identifies that his love for music is a light-bearing soul and not the raging fire of sin. Perhaps saving ourselves from the demons of this world, like Sammie, entails telling apart a sinful fire from the light of passion, of art, which might guide us to our soul.