Sinners

Spoilers!

I was enjoying this year's SINNERS just fine and then close to midway there's a big genre shift.  Let's just say the kind that would allow inclusion for my October reviews.  This shift was a fun bonus.  Before all the glowing eyes and Irish jigs came out, director/writer Ryan Coogler skillfully modulated a certain dread that finally went full throttle.  The assuredness, the electricity remained.  Even if the bloodletting maybe wasn't necessary.

But I'm glad it came.  In some ways it made a really good film even better.  Call Coogler's movie a rip-off of FROM DUSK TILL DAWN all you want but I thought this social drama/horror mashup worked beautifully. On so many levels.

1932. Twin brothers Smoke and Stack Moore (Michael B. Jordan) are WW1 vets who went off and made a lot of dirty money in Chicago.  They return to their hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi to start a juke joint for the locals.  With money they stole from the mob, the guys purchase a sawmill from a sweaty dude - likely a Klansman - called Hogwood (David Maldonado) and begin recruiting family and friends for opening night: 

1. Cousin Sammie (Miles Caton), a young aspiring blues guitarist.  Son of a preacher man.

2. Shopkeepers Grace (Li Jun Li) and Bo (Yao) Chow, to bartend.

3. Cornbread (Omar Miller), a sharecropper enlisted to be a bouncer.

4. Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo), veteran piano man and town drunk.

Etc.  When a trio of suspicious white folk (who we know are bad news as we met them some time earlier) arrive at the joint, things take a turn.  Maybe you already know how and what.  I've already given clues.  I like surprises in my movies so I won't ruin them for you. 

SINNERS is a pretty dense stew of commentary.  Obviously racial, but not limited to such. Certainly religious, and political. There are shout outs to many earlier films.  Some by Spike Lee.  I kept wondering if Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), Stack's ex, was in some way a nod to JUNGLE FEVER.   You could also take the entire thing as an essay on how the Black man's music was appropriated away from them.  There is a lot of great singing and playing in this picture, reason enough for even those averse to spurting gore to tune in.  Beware also that this film has at least three endings.