Sinners

Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers Smoke and Stack return to their Mississippi hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.

If you don’t already know what that evil is, you should probably stop reading this review now. Go see the movie for yourself! I promise you’ll enjoy it. All you really need to know from this review is that I thought the movie was great! And that should come as a surprise to no one since I am a big fan of writer-director Ryan Coogler.

I’ve loved this filmmaker ever since his debut with Fruitvale Station, but seeing as how I also loved his work on Creed and Black Panther, I would be willing to watch whatever this guy directs. And that definitely included his first foray into the horror genre, especially since Sinners is an original mid-budget film. So given how good the movie turned out to be, I'm glad that I got the chance to support it in a theater.

The crowd I saw it with was definitely into it, even as the story started to twist. Because, while this movie starts off as a simple story about racism in the Jim Crow South, it slowly turns into a horror film involving vampires. That's right, vampire vampires. And it's actually pretty awesome.

This movie contains the best depiction of vampires that I've seen in a long time. Sorry, Nosferatu fans, but Ryan Coogler was able to modernize the vampire story in a way that just really worked for me personally. And the vampires never took away from the rest of the story since a lot of time was spent getting us acquainted to the main characters before the vampires ever arrived.

But while all of that time did manage to get me invested in every character’s story, I can't deny that the slow burn approach was probably a bit too slow for my own personal taste. By which I mean, I do think that it took a little too long for the actual movie to get started, and that did make the first act feel a bit sluggish.

But once Smoke and Stack successfully managed to get a party going, I finally felt like the film was getting going itself. That being said, I also felt like the movie struggled with wrapping up its story, which is why the film basically has three different endings. So I do have some issues with the start of the film and the end of the film, but I can't deny that a huge chunk of the middle felt incredibly damn effective. Since the performances were all outstanding and the characters were incredibly well written, this helped ramp up the stakes and the tension once the vampire started showing up. 

Given how long vampire lore has actually existed, I never thought that I would see the monsters used in an allegory about racism; but Coogler definitely made it work here, and I respect how the filmmaker always has something to say .

I even enjoyed the way he incorporated music into this story since Ludwig Göransson’s soundtrack was absolutely beautiful and was placed wonderfully at the forefront of the film.

So the direction was fantastic, the writing was incredible, the story was engaging, the performances were all outstanding, the horror was suspenseful, the special effects were amazing, the themes were quite strong, and the music was absolutely beautiful. Meaning that, even with the issues I may have with the beginning and the very end, I can't deny that this is definitely one of the best films of the year. 

I only wish the trailer didn’t give away so much information about the plot. I definitely wish I could’ve experienced this story without knowing it involved vampires or without knowing who was going to become a vampire. 

Thankfully, the cast was so engaging, that the twists that were spoiled in the trailer didn’t even bother me. Hailee Steinfeld is as great as she always is; Delroy Lindo is a lot of fun; Jack O’Connell is fantastic as the film’s main villain; Michael B. Jordan gets the chance to deliver two excellent performances; and Miles Caton gave such an incredibly impressive debut, that he nearly outshined everyone else here. 

All of which helped in making Sinners an undeniably damn good movie. Sinners is another fantastic addition to Ryan Coogler’s impressive filmography, and it would definitely get a recommendation from me .