Is Sinners a vampire movie? Even members of the cast couldn’t agree whether it was or not. Delroy Lindo said it wasn’t, Michael B Jordan said it was. Either way it’s bold and ambitious, full of stuff to discuss, book-club style, over a drink afterwards. A bit didactic, a bit tasteful, a bit too in love with Steven Spielberg – if that’s a crime, I don’t know. Your mileage etc etc.
Riding along somewhere in the back of the narrative bus is the story of blues legend Robert Johnson, who went down to the crossroads and met the devil, who gave him all the best tunes. But that story is diluted to a homeopathic degree in this reworking, which focuses on a pair of twins, both played by Michael B Jordan, who have made a killing, possibly literally, in Chicago, and are now back in their hick home town to set up a juke joint and make some more money.
Opening night everyone is there. Including, in the film’s lively last third, unwanted guests in the shape of an Irish vampire called Remmick, and two locals he’s turned that way en route. The film, which has been pretty, clean and a touch folksy to this point, suddenly shifts into something closer to From Dusk Til Dawn. The energy levels rise and the wild overacting and overdone Southern accents start to make more sense. We’re in some sort of genre movie, not a bonnety drama making claims to historical authenticity.
Ryan Coogler’s film was really bogging down until it made this switch, with its mannered depiction of life in Mississippi in 1932, where the pickings are meagre and work is hard but people are respectful and dignified. This is a world where people rub along, though there are pinch points. The pastor who rails against godless music. The love affairs with the wrong person (too white, too married). It’s familiar, direct storytelling à la Spielberg – we have no doubt where we are and who the people we are watching are, what the big idea is. It’s a bit workaday.
Jordan playing both twins necessitates some cute CGI stuff as Smoke and Stack, as the guys are called, are introduced. Pure badness on Coogler’s part, whose stunt casting challenges audience to spot the join as the twins pass a cigarette back and forth between themselves. In case you get confused, it’s Smoke in the blue cap and Stack in the red cap, more fun on Coogler’s part, that colour coding.
It’s an imagistic film, one built on pretty pictures rather than dramatic tension. Cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw delivers boatloads of velvety darkness and everything looks gorgeous, a touch clean and tending towards the chocolate box.
Great cast. Jordan never lets the side down though not much is gained by having him in this twice. Hailee Steinfeld as a local girl too black for the white folks and not black enough for the black ones. Miles Caton, the film’s big find – he has a hell of a voice and he gets a few songs. Delroy Lindo as an old blues dude gets the film’s big laugh. Plus Jack O’Connell, exemplifying the trouble white people bring when they show up, but tinging his vampire with just enough pathos that we understand the Irish don’t have it all their own way either. There’s enough racism in the world to go around.
Riverdance zombies. Madly anachronistic dialogue. The fight against vampires as a race war. A late appearance by blues legend Buddy Guy. Plus a touching coda that almost redeems it all. Coogler kitchen-sinks it. It’s about 45 minutes too long.
Sinners – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2025
