Sinners

Review by Mike Finkelstein

It doesn’t take much for me to watch a horror movie. Really, all you have to say is, “it’s a horror movie,” and I’ll magically appear as if you threw down a salt circle and said an incantation. I’ll already have my ticket, a bucket of popcorn, and the car running, going, “we’re going to be late to the midnight showing!” Good or bad, if you tell me, “there’s a horror movie coming out,” all you’ll see is a puff of dust in the air as I’m running off to catch the show before the words have even left your mouth.

All of that is to say that even if Sinners, the new film by Ryan Coogler starring Michael B. Jordan, had been bad I still would have been there opening weekend to see it. I didn’t see any promos for it, didn’t watch trailers about the film. All I was told, by a friend, was it was a vampire movie, and also Black, and maybe a musical. It was a strange combination to hear, and I knew it could absolutely be a train wreck, but I was sold at the word “vampire”. This was a movie for me, and I had to see it.

Thankfully, the movie is awesome. All those elements that sound so weird on paper actually blend so well together in Coogler’s film. It’s a gorgeously filmed, utterly cinematic masterpiece of a movie that, yes, is a Souther Black Vampire Musical (for a certain definition of “musical”), and one that takes everything it does so seriously. But it has a casual seriousness to it, a way of presenting the most artfully composed shots, the most difficult staging and execution, as if it was nothing. With Sinners Coogler presented a masterclass in Hollywood filmmaking as if it was nothing. “Oh, this film. Yeah, I just tossed it off in a weekend. No big thing.” Its artful qualities are balanced perfectly by the fact that the film doesn’t even try to make you notice how hard it’s working, which makes it all the more special. This is true cinema, presented with vampires.

The film is all about Sammie "Preacher Boy" Moore (Miles Caton). Sammie is the son of a preacher (naturally), but he has aspirations to be a famous blue musician. His father thinks this is sinful, that any music not aimed towards the lord is an abomination, but Sammie doesn’t care. He just wants to play, and his cousins, Elijah "Smoke" Moore and Elias "Stack" Moore (Micahel B. Jordan) want him to play. Specifically they want SaMmie to play at their new club, which they’re opening that night, right on the outskirts of the plantation town.

But while Smoke and Stack get their club (funded by stolen mob money) put together, with Sammie as their star, another element is at play. A vampire, Remmick (Jack O'Connell), drawn by the power of Sammie’s music, wanders in. He makes a few other vampires to join them, and they arrive at the club at night, as Sammie’s music is in full swing. They want in, need in. They need the power of his music to break the boundary between worlds. Remmick wants the power, the release. If the cousins let him have Sammie, who knows what damage could be caused. The dark magics are coming, and it will be a fight for sunrise before this adventure is over.

To be clear, the story of Sinners isn’t exactly special. I’d call it a pretty standard vampire tale, with bad guys wanting one special good guy, and everyone having to use the rules of vampires against their foes to try and survive the night. I’ve actually seen this film’s story compared to From Dusk Till DawnThe first collaboration between Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, this movie is half crime flick, half vampire adventure, and a wild and strange ride., and that does feel accurate, in a way. The film is very focused on the drama of the characters, their interpersonal interactions, their lives, and then it puts most of that aside for a more bog standard vampire tale at the halfway point. If you go just on story alone you probably wouldn’t be too impressed by what Sinners has to offer.

But that’s also the point, I think. Coogler takes the bones of a basic story and lets them play out, but then focuses around the elements to build something on that structure that feels like so much more than just the vampire story it’s telling. From the opening moments of the film, Coogler shows you there’s more going on without ever drawing attention to it. A scene of Smoke and Stack leaning against their car, passing a cigarette back and forth to each other while they wait for the landowner so they can buy his property, a simple scene, an establishing shot. Except both Smoke and Stack are both played by Michael B. Jordan, and the cigarette passing back and forth, back and forth, all in one “take”, is a complex shot that would take hours of filming and compositing, and Coogler throws it off like it’s nothing.

There are a ton of shots like this in the film. Expansive vistas and long shots of sky are filmed for simple shots of two characters brokering a contract for the night. A sequence of one of the cousins gathering supplies and making another deal comes together as a tightly plotted oner so well executed that the friends that went to see the movie didn’t even notice it was a one-shot take. Over and over Coogler throws out these moments, sequences and shots that would be Academy Award winning on their own, and never once does the film feel the need to draw attention to it or make it so clearly staged that you have to notice. It’s casual excellence.

Thinking back on this movie I was reminded of Bram Stoker's DraculaDirected by Francis Ford Coppola, this version of Dracula is a lush, gorgeously produced bit of cinema that falls apart any time the characters open their mouths., where that film worked so hard to stage everything with practical effects, doing all the tricks it could in camera to make artistic, elaborate shots. The difference is that Francis Ford Coppola seemingly wanted you to notice how much effort went into every shot, from the overly elaborate costumes (which did win awards, mind you), to the complex, layered sequences of shots that forced your eye to take notice. Coppola wasn’t content to just film the movie artistically, he needed you to see it. Coogler, doesn’t, though. He’s doing just as much work, in the same genre of film (vampire movies) but he does it with such quiet cool that it feels more artistic than anything Coppola was able to stage in his vampire epic.

Of course, it also helps that the writing and acting in Sinners is miles better than anything featured in Dracula ‘92. Coogler, who also wrote the script, is here working again with Michael B. Jordan on their fifth film together (in fact, Jordan has been in every film Coogler has directed), and the director knows just how to get the best performance out of the actor. Jordan is so into his dual roles that, within minutes of the film starting, you already forget that it’s the same actor playing both characters. They feel distinct, different, like their own people and not just two roles the actor is playing. It’s masterful.

Not that the other actors are bad, mind you. The cast is absolutely packed with great actors and fantastic characters, from Hailee Steinfeld as Mary, Stack's ex; Wunmi Mosaku as Annie, Smoke's wife; Jayme Lawson as Pearline, a singer Sammie is interested in; Omar Miller as the bouncer, Cornbread; and Delroy Lindo as the pianist Delta Slim. But if we’re going to single anyone else out it has to be Miles Caton as Sammie because the actor does a phenomenal job playing the role and singing all his own music, and it’s even more amazing because this is literally Caton’s first acting role ever. The guy is going to go far.

I really have little I can say about this film that’s bad. Is the story a little threadbare? Maybe, but it’s a vampire film so the goal is to get the vampires to the heroes and then create carnage. And even if the story is thin, the characters surrounding it are rich and detailed and I honestly think that’s just as good. If I have any critique of the film it would simply be that I wish there was more of it. The sequences in the night club are fantastic (with a specific scene, and you’ll know it when you get there, that is absolutely draw-dropping) and I could have spent another hour with the film just exploring the club and enjoying the music. Coogler’s film is over two hours long, and I desperately wanted there to be even more of it. I needed it as this film is just simply amazing.

I don’t have a better word to describe it. This was a cinematic masterpiece, through and through, and if you haven’t already seen it then you absolutely have it. This might be the best Southern Black Vampire Film you’re going to see this year (or any other), but it might also just be one of the best films you’re going to see, period.