There is talk of turmoil inside Warner Bros. Last month, it was suggested by The Hollywood Reporter that studio boss David Zaslav wants to shift away from “filmmaker-driven fare” in favour of “big IP”-branded franchises. That would put an end to a film like Sinners, a concept pitched, written, and directed entirely by Creed and Black Panther’s Ryan Coogler and acquired by Warner Bros after a fierce bidding war. Coogler even ensured copyright will revert back to him after 25 years – a moderately rare event and a real sign of a filmmaker’s clout.
If cinema weren’t in such a sickly state, Sinners’s electric fusion of genres – historical epic, horror, and squelchy actioner – would be a guaranteed box office sensation. Instead, the film arrives with an uneasy sense that this is some kind of final stand for original ideas. One can only hope audiences recognise its bounty of riches. Sinners is headlined by Michael B Jordan, bringing movie-star charisma to not one but two roles: Smoke and Stack, twin brothers in 1932, returning from Capone-ruled mob warfare in Chicago to start a juke joint in their Mississippi hometown.
Smoke is the one in blue. Stack is the one in red. Their colours, conveniently, hint at their true natures: one rational, one hedonistic. Jordan, unlike Robert De Niro in The Alto Knights or Robert Pattinson in Mickey 17 – it’s already been quite the bumper year for men playing multiple men – keeps their differences fairly subtle. Smoke is all in the cock of his eyebrow, Stack in his wilful smirk. It’s smart, intuitive work.
Coogler kicks off his film with a muscular Scorsese flair – a brilliantly executed tracking shot follows one character across a bustling street, then another character back again. He builds up to the juke joint’s opening night, then the arrival of three suspicious-looking white musicians (Jack O'Connell, Lola Kirke, and Peter Dreimanis), and – bam – suddenly it’s a full-fledged vampire flick.
We have garlic, stakes, holy water, and invitations to cross the threshold. Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s cinematography lends the carnage a strange elegance, while Coogler shows as much interest in the metaphorical potential of the vampire as Robert Eggers did with Nosferatu earlier this year. Here, the vampire calls out to the marginalised with the promise of real power, real peace, and real harmony, even if it comes at the ultimate cost. The twins are told that the Ku Klux Klan are supposedly long gone, but what difference does it make if all the monsters have really done is take off their white hoods? To Smoke and Stack, it’s better to live “with the devil we know”.
There’s some From Dusk Till Dawn and The Thing tossed in here, while Coogler’s phenomenal supporting cast – among them Wunmi Mosaku, Hailee Steinfeld, and Delroy Lindo – embrace the genre in a way that’s knowing but never schlocky. O’Connell lends a vicious, bruised charm to head vamp Remmick, an Irishman yearning for his father’s land and his father’s language, both of which have been stolen from him. His only connection to his people is the folk music he carries close to his heart.
Music is as integral to Sinners as its bloodsuckers – so much so that Coogler’s regular composer Ludwig Göransson holds an executive producer credit. His score provides the perfect match, puncturing key moments with the scream of electric guitars. But it’s blues music – particularly that played by Sammie (newcomer Miles Caton), the son of a local preacher, that is the film’s lifeblood. Coogler intertwines song and the supernatural, linking West African traditions with the legendary claim that bluesman Robert Johnson acquired his talents when he sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads.
These ideas climax in a spectacular sequence in which Sinners briefly escapes its reality to draw a visual line between the past and present of Black music. Its opening monologue speaks of music’s ability to “pierce the veil between life and death”. Sinners, in all its beauty and horror, proves the same can be true of film.
Dir: Ryan Coogler. Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton, Jack O'Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Omar Benson Miller, Li Jun Li, Delroy Lindo. Cert 15, 137 minutes
‘Sinners’ is in cinemas from 18 April
