Sinners is a workable title for Ryan Coogler‘s fifth screen collaboration with Michael B. Jordan, but if you really want to get to the stake-in-the-heart of it all, a better name would be Vampire Blues.
That is exactly what this first leap into the horror genre for the filmmaker behind Black Panther and Creed has delivered. It is a period vampire movie/blues musical/Deep South gangster flick that may remind you at times of Get Out, The Color Purple, The Cotton Club, and just about every Warner Bros gangster movie of the ’30s, which is perfect since Warners is the studio behind it, and it feels like it belongs there. But the fact is that while the devilishly entertaining Sinners may have many cinematic inspirations, it no doubt is marching to its own drum.
Although it starts with a disturbing scene where a young man in duress enters his preacher father’s church service in rural Clarksville, MS, the story quickly switches to 24 hours earlier and the beginning of life-altering events all taking place in a single day. Prohibition-Era gangsters Smoke and Stack (both played by Jordan) are identical twins now returning to their hometown after years away in the battlefields of World War I and the ganglands of Chicago, and with them is their truck full of liquor and ambition to bring their big-city expertise to Clarksville where they plan to open Club Juke that is, to say the least, out of the ordinary for this town of sharecroppers. Sure these twins may be a little “mob lite” but they look the part and have big ideas. Also as they come back, Smoke, the more business-oriented of the twins, rekindles his relationship with sultry Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), the town’s Hoodoo conjurer and spiritual leader who picks up sexually right where she left off when Smoke left town seven years earlier.
They also ingratiate themselves with a young 19-year-old blues musician, Sammie aka Preacher Boy (a sensational film debut by Miles Caton), who is eager to follow his own dreams and life’s path, as well as with blues singer Delta (a great Delroy Lindo). Along with Annie they become a key part of the emergence of Club Juke, a centerpiece of song, dance, sex and life that this place has never seen. It is like a Deep South speakeasy and also where the multi-racial Mary (a fine Hailee Steinfeld), who married into wealth but is looking for something else, comes into the picture.
The film’s first hour or so focuses on all these characters and more in a conventional style of this genre, but Coogler has much more in store (much more) when Remmick (Jack O’Connell, terrific), who is fronting an Irish folk trio, comes knocking on the door of Club Juke wanting to get in with his friends but is turned away, even after trying to show they are in the musical spirit of things by an instant performance of “The Rocky Road To Dublin.” No luck, but it doesn’t take long to realize the “devil” is in the building and this group really are vampires who have lived for hundreds of years. Let the bloodletting begin, and believe me it comes in buckets in the film’s second half as Smoke and Stack lead the locals in a fight for their lives.
To say more would spoil the fun, but what this film demonstrates clearly is the exceptional filmmaking talent of Coogler and his team, mostly who all worked on his other films. The difference here, unlike the Black Panthers or the Creeds: this is a wholly original movie that Coogler also wrote, and one that taps into his deeply personal love of this genre. The gimmick of having Jordan play opposite himself is a time-honored tradition in movies for decades but is pulled off nicely here, both technically and performance-wise.
With a knockout musical score from two-time Oscar winner Ludwig Göransson that thrillingly incorporates the African blues songbook in ways that almost makes this as much a musical as it is a vampire movie, there is rich opportunity for this superb ensemble cast to show their stuff — particularly Caton, who shines on stage and off in this acting debut, even getting an original song, “I Lied To You,” to perform. Also strutting her stuff is the dazzling Jayme Lawson as Pearline, a local woman unleashed by the excitement of Club Juke. Even O’Connell and his crew of vampires get a choreographed dance and Irish jig that is just jaw-droppingly great and unexpected in its inclusion here. The soundtrack is killer.
Among the rest of the cast, Omar Miller is excellent as Cornbread, a sharecropper who works the door of the club, and Li Jun Li as Grace, part of the Chinese couple who run the grocery stores for both the poor and the rich in town. Coogler regulars are at the top of their game including Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s stunning cinematography, Hannah Beachler’s unmatched production design, and Ruth E. Carter’s smart costume design.
Sinners marks another strong reason why Coogler is at the top of his generation of filmmakers, and Jordan continues to show why he is a real-deal movie star. Word to the wise: the end credits are more like a Marvel movie as they are interrupted by a longish extra scene that includes a special cast member, blues legend Buddy Guy, plus yet another musical number at the end of credits.
Producers are Coogler, Zidzi Coogler and Sev Ohanian.
Title: Sinners
Distributor: Warner Bros
Release Date: April 18, 2025 (April 16 internationally)
Director-screenwriter: Ryan Coogler
Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton, Jack O’Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Omar Miller, Delroy Lindo, Li Jun Li
Rating: R
Running time: 2 hr 18 mins