Sinners Is a Winner...s
Or, Stop Rhyming, You're Not Good At It!
Some time back I resolved to stop dumping on books and movies and TV shows that didn’t resonate with me. Positive vibes only, right? Well, my last few essays have swerved dangerously close to self-pity. Publishing, the declining movie industry…that approach cannot stand. On Easter Sunday, to clear my head, I went to the movies. Saw Ryan Coogler’s Sinners. It’s an original script, an R-rated horror movie, a period piece, a musical, social commentary, and was shot on film. It runs 137 minutes. It’s made for adults.
And it is glorious.
This isn’t a movie review newsletter. And Sinners isn’t perfect. But Ryan Coogler’s bleak vision of 1930s Jim Crow Mississippi, his exploration of cultural ownership and the deals we make to get what we want crackles with life. I punch out of didactic “message movies” pretty quick. Coogler wraps weighty themes first in a sweat-drenched crime noir, then in a blood-soaked vampire gorefest. Remember how Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite was three different movies, and moved seamlessly between genres? Coogler pulls that deft move off here to similar effect.
For the first act I got pure Goodfellas vibes. That illicit thrill that comes from watching complex characters pull terrible shit. It works because Michael B. Jordan is the rare movie star who can also act (Coogler and Jordan made me cry with Creed). In dual roles—a gimmick that rarely works—he makes twins Smoke and Stack pop as unique individuals. The FX needed to get them both on screen never distracts from the story. Probably because Coogler’s dialogue is sharp and evocative of a time and place and never explains more than absolutely necessary. This is Deadwood down south. I would’ve gladly welcomed a movie about Smoke and Stack running a Mississippi juke joint and battling the Klan. But Coogler had other ideas.
This is a vampire movie. If you’ve seen the trailers, you know that (modern trailers reveal way too much, but that’s an essay for another day). And when Jack O’Connell shows up, somehow more restrained as an undead bloodsucker than Rogue Heroes’ raging SAS officer Paddy Mayne, the story shift is ominous. For about forty-five minutes, Sinners goes full-on apocalyptic horror. It’s visceral and ugly and leans a bit too hard on familiar tropes. A mid-credits coda (thanks, MCU stingers!) pulls Coogler’s thesis back together, though. I walked out energized. I will see it again, in a theater, where movies belong.
Social media rewards angry clickbait. Goodreads and Letterboxd are filled with scathing reviews. Twitter is a dumpster fire of petty jealousy. Blue Sky is a safe space of toxic positivity. Nuance lives in long-form media. Books. Essays. Well-made television. And, every so often, a big, ballsy, old-fashioned, kidney-punch of a movie.
Sinners hit that last target. I hope people see it.