Review: Sinners (2025)
Mixing a mytho-historical setting with cultural myths and all-too-real illustrations of Jim Crow racism and resistance, plus it's almost a musical
Sinners (2025)
Written and directed by Ryan Coogler
The last movie I wrote about was “Casablanca,” and whenever I write about a classic, well-loved, and seemingly universally known movie1, I’m aware that enough ink to fill, say, Lake Michigan has been used to write about it. It’s not like I struggle to find something new to say, aware that everything has already been said; it’s more like I have to pinpoint why the movie is still relevant, still capable of exciting viewers.
“Sinners,” written and directed by Ryan Coogler (“Fruitvale Station,” “Black Panther”), is a little like that, even though it was released just two months ago. Word of mouth was huge, and it’s still in theaters, impossible to ignore. And yes, a lot has been written about it. Because everyone has to see and talk about what is most likely the movie of the year.
“Sinners” is, first of all, a tour de force — a brilliantly imagined total work of art that combines drama, music, dance, violence, and the supernatural, and none of it seems out of place. A story about two former sharecroppers who return, in the year 1922, to the Mississippi delta from years in Chicago sharply dressed and carrying a substantial bag of cash— suspicious enough to raise questions and to preclude any exact explanations — intending to open up a backwoods juke joint.
That could be a comedy premise, but despite occasional light moments, “Sinners” is no comedy, but a drama — with parts that venture into the supernatural — about black people trying to go into business and the forces of white America that try to make them fail.
But that makes it sound didactic and documentary-like. “Sinners” is actually a gripping story, superbly acted, directed, photographed, and edited. While it contains moments of magic realism, it’s not the “magical Negro”2 kind. While it features vampires as a main element, it’s not a fantasy movie. It just all works together to produce a moviegoing experience that will be very hard to top for a long time.
Award for reminding American viewers who grew up on white, often British or Irish, “blues rock” figures like Eric Clapton and John Mayall what the blues actually are.3 Award for best hate-dancing an Irish jig. Award for best conversion of a former child star (Hailee Steinfeld, who got an Oscar nom for her starring, excuse me, supporting role in the 2011 remake of “True Grit,” followed by quite a few generic teenage roles) into a truly sexy and dangerous adult.
One exception to the extremely experienced cast is Miles Caton, who plays a young prodigy named Sammie, He plays slide guitar and sings so well, the two brothers (both played by Jordan) opening up their own backwoods juke joint immediately hire him as the star entertainer.
Yes, there is a ton of music, both sung and played, which made me wonder partway through, is this a musical? Technically no, because not enough story drama is advanced in song. But it is a great soundtrack.
In the second half, things get weird. I don’t feel like spoiling it here, though you might well have gotten enough word of mouth to know. All I’ll say is that you will never hear white, Irish-type American folk music again without picturing the characters in this movie who perform it and the uses they put it to. In fact, if it is possible for one movie to single-handedly undermine an entire subgenre of American roots music, this is the movie to do it.
I say “universally known,” but when I mentioned “Casablanca” to two comrades in their 20s, they gently said they had never even heard of it. Which astounded me, but then I had to remind myself that the year 1941 is just as remote to them as the year 1891 would have been to me when I was in my 20s. Anyway, the slightly embarrassed air that coalesces between us whenever it becomes clear that I am frighteningly older than they are is made up for the fact that I nearly keep up with them most of the time.
My lord, that made me remember an egregious song I heard yesterday on the radio by a very white American blues rock band that was a tribute to Robert Johnson, which fine, but OMFG don’t be a white artist telling your audience who a black artist was. (This phenomenon was ably mocked in the fabulous and strange “Ghost World” (2001) in which Steve Buscemi decries a white blues rock band called Blueshammer singing a song about picking cotton while ignoring the fact that he, being a white nerd, is hardly in a position to preach to anyone about what the blues are.)
What's your opinion on the true bad guy of the film? I don't think it was the vampires i think they were also victims of oppression in a previous life.