Ambitious, electrifying, and a bit overstuffed, Sinners is one of the year's most exciting and entertaining films.
Michael B. Jordan gives his best performance to date as Smoke and Stack, twins who return to their Mississippi home to start a juke joint with ill-gotten gains from their time hustling in Chicago. Flashing cash and illegal booze, they entice longtime friends, old flames, and legendary musicians to the grand opening. But the problems they'll face over the long night will be more intense than drunken brawls, brazen cheating, and cash flow issues. To say much more than that would spoil the film's many nasty surprises.
Sinners is an all-time "gear shift" movie, which starts as one thing but ends as something crazier. It's a movie that has no problem pulling the rug out from under you. Its clearest inspiration is From Dusk Till Dawn, equally gory and sleazy, and sharing a significant plot twist. But writer-director Ryan Coogler has far more on his mind than cheap thrills. That's the movie's biggest asset, but also what keeps it from greatness. Even as it approaches two-and-a-half hours, that's still not quite enough time to tackle all his big ideas about identity, assimilation, duty, spirituality, and commerce. This is a classic case of recognizing that getting to make an original movie at this scale might never come around again, so best to put everything in it, lest it forever remain a concept, a sketch, a thought.
Fortunately for being so much movie, all of it is fascinating, even if it's not fully baked. Cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapow shifts aspect ratios often, but never in a way that's distracting or just showing off. The big musical performances - and there are a lot of them, including one that absolutely blew me away - take up the full IMAX screen and the instruments, vocals, and cheers seems to come from everywhere. (This is also true in the film's scarier moments, where screams, hisses, and squelches overtake you.)
The supporting cast also impresses, from veterans like Delroy Lindo to newcomers like Miles Caton. They're fully developed characters, with their own hopes and dreams, and their own shorthand for communicating with their friends and family. There's an authenticity here that extends beyond the sweaty conditions and ever-present racism.
If you want a compelling drama about finding little reservoirs of joy in a hateful world, Sinners delivers. If you want an effective horror movie with some excellent scares and make-up effects, Sinners offers that too. A boldly original movie like this, even one with some flaws, deserves celebration.
