‘Sinners’ (review)

Over a single beautiful day that turns into a scream-filled night, Sinners gives us folk, family, fear, and one of the creepiest forms of fellowship in recent memory.

Ryan Coogler’s glam Blaxploitation take on Southern Gothic starts with a slow burn of beautiful exposition that makes the stakes that much higher, with every character claiming a clear story and place.

Michael B. Jordan plays both of his roles distinctly, as if he’s trying to earn best actor and best supporting at the same time. And throughout, a vintage bluesy soundtrack with the pounding drive of a heartbeat – sometimes steady, sometimes positively racing – haunts and heightens the experience.

Sinners may very well be the first “must watch” film of 2025.

Deep in the South in the early 1930’s, charming but infamous twins Smoke and Stack (Michael B. Jordan and some very clever camera work) are back home to open what is sure to be the best juke joint in the county.

Their sharply tailored suits stand out amongst the dungaree-clad townsfolk, and the air of money surrounds them like the dust kicked up from so many unpaved roads, weaving through the cotton fields. Smoke and Stack come bearing more than good clothes and lofty dreams – a truck full of stolen liquor and beer alongside a fair bit of cash helps build their dream of a place “for us, by us”.

Wrapped up in this glitzy scheme is their innocent young cousin, a quiet guitar prodigy and preacher’s kid named Sammie (Miles Caton). Rounding out the opening night crew are the drunk but talented musician Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo), Stacks’ former lover and local wise woman Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), Smoke’s friend and bouncer for the evening Cornbread (Omar Benson Miller), and married general store owners & signmakers Grace (Li Jun Li) and Bo Chow (Yao).

Everyone is joyfully engaged in opening night prep as the sun starts to sink low.

Learning about the backstories and forces behind the twins return to Mississippi, Smoke’s run-in with his fiery white ex-lover Mary (Hailee Steinfield), or why Delta Slim doesn’t trust the promises of the North is a treat that unfolds as slow and sweet as a Southern drawl. It’s wildly easy to forget this is a horror movie til the sun sets, and the limited safety and joy Southern people of color had in the day gives way to the terror of night.

The switch flips for everyone with a simple song and seemingly sweet smile from a white musician named Remmick (Jack O’Connell) and his bandmates, who ask to be invited in to the juke joint so they can also play and fellowship after hearing Sammie’s soulful playing. Stopped at the door, the twins are clear this is not the place for “them.”

Weaving the realities of racism into the storyline, Remmick’s two fair-complexioned companions were all too eager a few hours earlier to trust him on the basis of race rather than, well, species. As the trio starts to find ways to infiltrate the Black gathering and grow a multiracial chosen family of their own, the only way anyone inside will make it out is to cling to the beliefs and strengths that bind them as strongly as blood.

Once the violence starts, the film moves at a dizzying clip compared to the first half.

But Sinners never falters in pacing, and the speed of the kills fits the anxiety of fighting to be saved by the sweet first light of day. An amazing blues-inspired score from Coogler’s Black Panther partner Ludwig Göransson pulls the audience through the story, reminding all of us that music is such a key to the soul that even those who have lost theirs can’t help but be lured by it.

And in some cases, ultimately saved by it.