“Sinners” is now among the biggest movies of the year.
Directed by Ryan Coogler (Black Panther) and starring Michael B. Jordan and Hailee Steinfeld, the film grossed $63 million at the box office against its $90 million budget in under a week of showing. It is also currently rated 98 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
The film follows twins Smoke and Stack (played by Jordan), who return to their hometown in Mississippi to build their own juke joint, using money they earned from criminal activities in Chicago. Though their enterprise gets off to a great start, thanks in part to their gifted musician-cousin Sammie “Preacher Boy” Moore (played by Miles Caton), things go south when a group of bloodthirsty vampires visit their establishment. Steinfeld plays Mary, Stack’s lover, while Wunmi Mosaku stars as Smoke’s estranged partner.
Despite being Coogler’s horror debut, “Sinners” breathes new life into the vampire genre, offering both social commentary and a celebration of Black history, music, and culture.
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A celebration of the blues and black music’s heritage
As if a proven inevitability evidenced by the “Black Panther” movies, Coogler knows his movie music, and both the ‘Sinners’ score and soundtrack are as good as it gets.
Courtesy of Ludwig Göransson, the “Sinners” score teeters between a juke joint’s funky, grungy blues, and the escalating, intensifying tension one would associate with a horror title. If anything, by the next Academy Awards, Göransson will have the follow-up to his “Oppenheimer” Oscars win.
Hollywood’s ‘Sinners’
Jordan leads the “Sinners” cast with a performance worthy of an Academy Award nod. He plays the Smoke-Stack twins with a subtlety enough to differentiate the pair without portraying them as comically opposite. He shines brightest as Smoke, capturing the persona of a grizzled veteran haunted by loss and pain, but without the ability or the opportunity to rest and grieve.
Steinfeld steals the show, portraying two extremes: Mary, burdened by a recent loss and clinging to the love of a detached lover, and the other, a devilish and undeniably sexy vampire freed of all inhibitions.
Delroy George Lindo as Delta Sim can be quickly dismissed as your typical comedic relief. Yet behind his humor are decades upon decades worth of memories of Black slavery that he buries with a bottle.
Lastly, Caton as “Preacher Boy” steals every scene he is in and makes you forget that Jordan is the lead of the film. And did we mention that “Sinners” is his feature film debut?
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The price of freedom
Without delving into spoiler territory, “Sinners” reframes the idea of freedom in the context of Black history and bondage, where the pursuit of simple freedoms through rest, success, and self-expression is considered a grave sin. And when the price of freedom is eternal damnation, “Sinners” proves that for Black people, that is one they have and are willing to pay.
