What an extraordinary week for a cross channel swim in cultural waters. Within six days, I watched the last two episodes of Apple’s Severance season 2, the first two episodes of Netflix’s Adolescence and in a few hours I’ll be in the cinema the highly praised Sinners. For tedious reasons I’m late to this particular party but I hope this review encourages stragglers like me to catch this film before the end of its theatrical run. My whole family were bemused by the antics of Severance’s marching bands and lambs and we were left not entirely sure we’re up for a 3rd season. We were electrified by the performances in Adolescence and tried hard not to be mindful at every literal turn of the much celebrated ‘oners’ (the one take single shot) that make up each of the four episodes (two to go). As for the critic’s darling of the year so far, I have tried to stay unburdened by too many opinions and spoilers before I dive in to the American South in the early 30s but I will say it is a delightful pleasure not to know too much about a film with a smidgeon of expectation that Sinners is going to be a winner.

I needn’t have been concerned. I was in damn good hands. Sinners tells the story of two ex-WWI soldiers, twin brothers, nicknamed Smoke and Stack, who made their money as gangsters in Chicago during the Al Capone era. They return to Mississippi to pull in favours from locals who respect and inevitably fear the twins in order to profit from their latest venture, a nightclub known as a Juke Joint, created from an old sawmill bought from a racist thug. These places gave a little light to lives blighted by cotton-picking and servitude. Along the way, they pick up the best of the blues musicians on offer from local talent. The twins’ cousin, Sammie, is a gifted blues singer and with his silver bottleneck slide guitar and powerful voice, he impresses enough to be allowed to perform. What could possibly go wrong?

Needless to say, there’s a lot more to Sinners than that. Going in with no advance information, you’d be forgiven thinking that 40 minutes in, this was a beautifully crafted tale of criminal redemption in the Deep South where racism wasn’t an isolated infrequent occurrence but a way of life. While slavery was officially abolished in the US 67 years earlier in 1865, what came to be known as the ‘Jim Crow’ laws came into effect and were only overturned a full 100 years later. In that century, some southern states of America passed into law stringent social diktats that, in a word, were collectively and essentially apartheid. The name ‘Jim Crow’ was a derisive term for African American. White supremacy was a given in these states and what we now regard as utterly reprehensible was simply normal for millions of African Americans. Any respite that allowed those in servitude (by any other name) to be ‘free’ and to be themselves, was joyously celebrated. The blues originated from this need to have time away from the ignominies of life in the South and create something of value that belonged to the black communities untainted by white control. Music was a balm for the soul but the blues, specifically, is linked to all sorts of supernatural myths as the film’s initial voiceover reminds us. The most famous story of its ilk is that of revered blues guitarist, Robert Johnson and his deal with the Devil.** Good blues music attracts all sorts of undesirables as the twins soon find out.

Once home, both Smoke and Stack find ragged remnants of lives they left behind. While Stack reunites with an old girlfriend Mary, Smoke reconnects with a wife he deserted bringing painful memories to the surface but as luck would have it, Stack’s wife Annie knows a little about the supernatural, enough to briefly save a few lives on the most intense night of all their lives. The mid-film genre rug-pull is not much of a spoiler – there are two obvious vampires in the trailer – but let’s just say that an Irish immigrant, Remmick (with a credible Michael Flatley turn later on in the film) seeks shelter and help after being pursued by Native Americans. The latter warn those who had sheltered Remmick that they should be very careful dealing with this man. It doesn’t go well for the hospitable couple but caring about their fates is somewhat mitigated by the white robe of the Ku Klux Clan glimpsed sitting on a chair inside their house. Let’s just say that all three are now looking for something or someone else to get their teeth into. Whether the vampires are intended as allegorical white suppressors sucking the life out of their black underlings (and it’s hard not to subscribe to that idea) is really up to you. I took them at face value at first. It’s only once the weight of the ideas in the film starts to sink in, do you start unpacking a very full suitcase.

The performances are all top notch. Headlining the film is Michael B. Jordan who plays both Smoke and Stack. The man has charisma enough for two (that’s all too apt) and has a physical presence that exudes power, charm and lethality. Jordan and Coogler remain a powerful creative team throughout Coogler’s roster of work. The filmmakers are kind enough to give each twin different coloured hats and ties so we have a chance of telling them apart. But Jordan’s subtle changes in characterisation between the two are also enough for us to know who’s who. Hailee Steinfeld as Mary, Stack's ex-girlfriend, can pass as white but strongly identifies as black citing a black descendant. Wronged by Stack in the past, it’s clear she and Stack have strong feelings for each other and events bring them together if not in the best of circumstances. Newcomer Miles Caton plays Sammie, the twins' cousin and stands in as an avatar for blues guitarist Robert Johnson. His preacher father is convinced that his son’s music is evil. It’s Sammie’s transcendent performance in the Juke Joint that is the catalyst for the showcase sequence of the entire film. Music, as most of us know who love it, can mine profound human truths and elicit in those susceptible to its effect, great emotion and elation not to mention ecstasy. Admit it. Drunk or sober, who hasn’t danced with joyful abandon to a favourite piece of music? Director Coogler choreographs this musical sequence that unites ages past and ages future and it’s absolutely dazzling. Wunmi Mosaku plays Annie, Smoke's wife. She’s pragmatic in the face of the supernatural being a practitioner of protection spells and holding other mystical qualifications. At first, Smoke’s not a believer but with so much at stake (pun originally unintended), he wisely accepts the horrific realty of the situation. Remmick, the principal protagonist, is utterly convincing as a powerful creature of the night. Jack O'Connell plays him as if he enjoys pretending (really badly!) that he’s not a threat to anyone. And as I said, the man can dance. Delta Slim, the insistently alcoholic but talented pianist, played by Delroy Lindo, is the film’s heart and comic relief when necessary. He’s the old soul of the music in the Juke Joint giving way to Sammie and the next generation of blues artists.

Sinners, by dint of its genre DNA, inevitably evokes echoes from other films but these echoes are never too intrusive. They are there but never feel shoehorned in as a blatant homage or, worse, a blatant rip off. The obvious relation is From Dusk Till Dawn but that’s a little like comparing a real genre B-Movie to a film with genre conventions suitably nodded to but is aiming a lot higher. That said, there are no self-erecting dick guns in Sinners and the movie is not the poorer for it. The paranoia of John Carpenter’s The Thing is subtly referenced by having the remaining group holed up in the Juke Joint being forced to chew on garlic bulbs to prove their own humanity. A violent group besieging another group stays in Carpenter territory with its nods to Assault on Precinct 13. By far the silliest but surprising reference is, to of all things, Riverdance…

Aside from Jordan, Coogler’s other faithful creative partner is composer Ludwig Göransson. In an astonishing creative achievement, he manages to fuse the blues with his own film score compositions and while the result should be music at odds with its own dual nature, the melding is something rather beautiful and inspiring. You hear it and wonder how can such different qualities not clash and grate. It’s a blend of life-affirming harmony with some cues, appropriately, with different time signatures. How it works so well is the alchemy of sound and the sheer talent of Göransson. Musically, this film is a masterclass and the score plays behind me while I write, a soulful, sonic representation of the film’s themes and an encompassing statement that allows the audience to feel the message and not be assaulted by it. I cannot praise the score highly enough for what it achieves in elevating the film’s themes in a grand but subtle way. Also I was never aware of the score as an aspect that was layered on to the film as a distinct, separate element. From the very start it was part of the film in the way that ingredients are part of the whole meal. I cannot say that about a great many films. Göransson’s score fits Sinners in such a way that you feel the soundtrack, effects et al, is just one glorious concoction. The work that has to go into producing such an effect is staggering. A character lights a candle and takes three strikes of the match to do so. Göransson manages to score even this tiny moment to give it some weight and a dash of wit.

As a film editor, my antennae are forever attuned to how some creative decisions were arrived at and I have to say, the match cut between the shock of a character taking flight and the singer at the Juke Joint leaping up on stage is sublime. It’s a cut like that which makes my pleasure centres trill. I also have to give a shout out to the four (as far as I can tell) visual effects companies whose work is utterly invisible. Immersed in the drama, you soon forget that every time you see Smoke and Stack together, you are seeing seamless VFX work. Inconveniently, Michael B. Jordan has no twin brother. Early in the film, the pair share a joint and one passes it to the other with no way of knowing how much work went into that composite. Flawless work, bravo. If I had to be critical, I offer two aspects of the film and the first could be laid squarely at my own doorstep. I have some top end hearing loss but I did find it very difficult to make out a lot of the dialogue. So whether this was my own hearing or a sound mix that emphasized southern accents and period-accurate articulation, it was mildly irritating. Secondly, there were three distinct endings, one of them mid-end credits which is an odd place to situate an ending. Each worked independently tying up loose ends but it seemed like a little too much icing on that wedding cake. That said, its runtime of 138 minutes flew by.

Alas, I have no access to an IMAX theatre so cannot comment on that experience but I can guess the identity of at least one of the sequences in the film that was given the IMAX treatment. But the ‘standard’ cinema version is still terrific. Try and catch it on a big screen if you can. In a depressing cinema landscape of endlessly regurgitated movies from known IPs, an original film feels so damn refreshing. Refresh yourself.

* https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2025/04/sinners-movie-ryan-coogler-interview/682556/

** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYffTDIc03I

Robert Johnson was a good musician but after a mysterious period away from the club circuit, he returned with a seven string guitar that he could play with skill unlikely to have been learned in the short time he was away. So the rumours started that he had made a deal with the Devil and met him at a crossroads where he sold his soul in exchange for great musical talent… In reality, he found a mentor and practised for all hours learning and absorbing the older man’s skill. He was hailed as a great after returning to the Juke Joints and after being friendly with a woman one night, he was offered a glass of whiskey poisoned by that woman’s husband. A few days later at the ‘significant’ age of 27, Johnson died. Google ’27 Club’ for the reason for the word ‘significant.