Sinners 2025

 

For the first half of this Ryan Coogler audacious movie I sat in awe and pleasure as I was expecting a large and imaginative take on African American life in the Jim Crow south of 1932. I had really no idea what was coming and knew very little about this blockbuster movie and even its blockbuster status surprised me before seeing it. Now of course I understand why it was such a huge hit and it has nothing to do with African American history in the deep south of 1932. More about that later on.

The story concerns two grown twin brothers both played by the fine charismatic handsome actor Michael B. Jordan. The first surprise for me. They are home from Chicago where they were members of the Al Capone gang and are now ready to spend some of their ill gotten bucks on opening a big Juke Joint for the pleasure and enjoyment of their down beaten community in a huge abandoned sawmill that they buy from an obvious racist and maybe even a KKK member.

The two twins are nicknamed smoke and stack cute right? and upon returning they are greeted by close friends and some new buddies. Among the new buds is Sammy a young cousin of theirs who sings and plays the guitar beautifully, and is soon taken under the twin's enveloping wings. Sammy has conflicts with his father who is a no nonsense minister of a small southern church and does not like what Sammy is doing.

The film actually opens with Sammy all battered and bruised holding the remains of his guitar driving confused up to his father's church in a vintage red convertible. We know nothing of what happened until the movie flashes back in time to a few days earlier. For some reason known only to Coogler the screen ratio keeps going from wide screen to 4.3, one of the annoying things I didn't like.

Its in the long flashback that takes up most of the movie's running time of 138 minutes and where the story unfolds we meet all the major and minor characters of the movie We meet the Chinese couple Grace and Bo Chow and their teenage daughter Lisa who own two groceries one selling to whites only and the other to blacks. They are old friends of the brothers and I love the affection and feelings that they have for each other. I knew nothing about the vibrant Chinese community who had homes and lives in the deep south during this period or indeed any other period so I welcomed this new addition of knowledge.

One of my favorites in the film is played by the great Nigerian British actress Wunmi Mosaku who gives another terrific performance as Smoke's estranged wife and practitioner of hoodoo and mother of their dead infant. She is a majestic and monumental figure.


There is a lot of great music in the film, and a highlight is the large dance number at the juke joint where dancers come back from the far and recent past to perform in this wonderful dance and music number. It is a successful attempt at mixing music, fantasy and dance and the look of this number brought back to me images of paintings by some of the great African American artists of the time including Archibald John Motley, Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence whose works I've posted with the review.

Spoiler Alert

However my admiration for the film starts to go downhill with the introduction and take over of the story by the far fetched appearance of vampires. Why vampires? Are they a metaphor for the racists and KKK? This strange brew just didn't work for me, it was as if another film had stumbled into this movie and it's a silly intrusion into what was for me, a marvelous interpretation of the period and the African American experience during this time. It just didn't work for me. I know I am in the minority about this vampire thing, but that's ok.

I can only think that Coogler who has made some of the Marvel films and the Rocky spinoff “Creed”wanted to capture the younger audiences which he did. However I pretty much turned off during the last part of the film with all the vampire bloodshed and bullshit. He also adds two Addenda endings both of which were unnecessary and mawkish including a one man bloody attack on the KKK and a later look at the character of Sammy also unnecessary.

None of this has hampered the generally very good critical response, and the film's appearance in most of the year end award nominations and winners, and then there are those stunning blockbuster box office returns. Listen I have nothing against the mixing of history with fantasy. In fact one of my favorite series of the recent past is “Lovecraft Country” that wonderfully mixed fantasy, sci fi and horror with the African American experience in Chicago during the 40's and 50's and featured a stunning group of African American actors including Wunmi Mosaku.