By Matthew Moorcroft

Highest Recommendation

• Directed by Ryan Coogler
• Starring Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Canton, Delroy Lindo
• R

Laced with immediate texture in it’s 65mm frames and gorgeous southern locales, Sinners – the first non-franchise film from Ryan Coogler since his stellar debut in 2013 – is the rare film that makes it’s first impressions strong and stays strong throughout it’s entire runtime. Just like the blues that so influenced it’s core themes and ideas, it slowly builds and builds before exploding in a fury as it reaches it’s climax. Every scene feels like a montage and hodge podge of multiple tones and ideas, constantly evolving with a kinetic, propulsive momentum that never, truly ends.

With Coogler unshackled from the constraints of a Rocky legacy sequel or the ever expanding MCU, both worlds he managed to make his own in spite of themselves, Sinners is the rare studio blockbuster or genre picture that feels like a fully committed, one of a kind vision. It owes so much of it’s existence to the other films of it’s ilk but completely upends them in unexpected ways and makes them feel completely fresh. Vampire films used to have to live up to the likes of Nosferatu or Dracula. Now, they’ll have to live up to Sinners.

And it’s all due to the roots of the picture, which aren’t vampires or horror or even the genre fare that Coogler so clearly loves and has been trying to mimic his whole career. Instead, it’s found in the music, the community, the mythos. It’s why the first images of the film are about the seeming supernatural power of song and dance, bringing together the past, present, and future. And it’s all in the blues; all blues is music, and all music is blues. This is the truth that permeates this world. Ludwig Gorransson’s phenomenal score – which might be some career best stuff in a career of nothing but career best stuff – just rips through the entire film and every single note feels ripped from the time period. While every film has music as an important piece of the puzzle, you simply cannot have Sinners without it’s music on purpose, working almost as a wordless musical at points.

The richness of Sinners‘ baseline conceit, which tackles ideas of assimilation through culture and the boundless power of shared community, is really the key here as much of Sinners‘ first half plays out like a classical historical drama. The vampires aren’t even seen until the halfway point when their sudden appearance shifts the tone of the film to a near splatter film by the end, but that first half is filled with stellar production design, costuming, and authenticity in it’s frames that it’s hard to complain. When that shift does occur, it’s mostly through a bravura sequence involving Miles Canton’s brilliant singing voice and playing skills; a literal and hypothetical barn burner of a scene that signifies “the real shit” is about to start.

And that real shit is bloody, sexy, and wickedly entertaining, culminating in one of the most fun action sequences we’re likely to get all year. It never gets to be “too much” but it also knows what the audience wants to see and makes sure to deliver on it in spades. Crimson red blood seeps out of wounds while bright oranges and deep browns make the dirt and soot pile on, and it ends in a literal firestorm that seemingly burns the aspect ratio. Wickedly intoxicating stuff.

Beyond the aforementioned Canton, who makes a hell of a debut here, Michael B. Jordan’s dual turn as a pair of twins is inspired and a hell of a ton of fun, and spotting the different nuances in his performance is sometimes part of the fun of keeping track of who is who (like how Stack grins so much more while Smoke has some sort of tremors going on). This extends to his interactions with the rest of the ensemble (all of which are fantastic), and it becomes almost a seamless magic trick and makes you believe, for a moment, Jordan really does have a twin.

But that’s just what Sinners is at the end of the day, an impeccably made, almost perfect magic trick that reminds you of the possibilities and beauty of cinema at large. It’s the kind of movie that makes movie lovers and reminds cinephiles why they love them in the first. By far and away the best film released so far in the year (and likely to stay at said top for a while) and Coogler’s current magnum opus.