Ryan Coogler is arguably the best-case scenario of the current Hollywood wave of filmmaking. Following his incendiary debut “Fruitvale Station” in 2013, Coogler went mainstream with “Creed” (2015) and the “Black Panther” movies, successful franchise films that retained the unmistakable imprint of their director. With “Sinners,” Coogler’s first wholly original film in more than a decade, two things are clear: He has mastered the craft of the Hollywood blockbuster, and he spent his time in the franchise factory building up a surplus of ideas. “Sinners” is crackerjack entertainment with brains and soul – and is easily one of the best movies of the year so far.
Set in 1932 in the deep American south, “Sinners” stars Coogler muse Michael B. Jordan in dual roles as Smoke and Stack, twin hustlers who return to their hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi, to open a juke joint in an abandoned cotton mill. Enlisting the help of their younger cousin Sammy (newcomer Miles Caton), a blues guitar virtuoso who goes by the moniker of “Preacher Boy,” the pair turn the barn into a community hub in less than 24 hours. What the Smokestack twins don’t realize is that the fields of their youth are home to an evil that’s older and stranger than even the pernicious racism they’re accustomed to, and soon they and their friends will have to fend off a horde of ravenous vampires until sunrise.
“Sinners” is the rare horror picture that would stand on its own feet even if the monsters never showed up. Jordan is one of our most magnetic and charismatic movie stars, and here there are two of him; playing off himself in natty ’30s gangster attire, he makes a case for himself as both our Paul Newman and our Robert Redford. Likewise, the expansive supporting cast is attuned fully to the material, including Wunmi Mosaku as the local hoodoo queen, Hailee Steinfeld as Stack’s old flame and Delroy Lindo as a hard-drinking blues man with a Howlin’ Wolf rasp. The chemistry of the cast makes Coogler’s Clarksdale feel truly lived-in, a community of individuals who share a rich history.
With its magic-hour vision of the Depression-era American south, comparisons are perhaps inevitable to the Coen brothers’ “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” (2000). Coogler, of course, is more dialed into the real-life horrors of the era than the Coens – his Klansmen are all-too-real monsters rather than choreographed abstractions – but both films are in love with the rural culture of the era, particularly the music. “Sinners” of course draws heavily on the legend of Robert Johnson, the blues singer who supposedly sold his soul to the devil in exchange for supernatural guitar skills, but it pays tribute to the full gamut of Southern-born Black music. In one show-stopping sequence, Preacher Boy’s guitar conjures Black musicians and dancers of all eras, from African griots to South Bronx b-boys, all mixing casually into the 1930s crowd. Tellingly, the monsters prefer traditionally white forms of music – Irish jigs, Appalachian gospel, hillbilly string-band – but even their numbers are breathtaking and infectious. While not a musical in the strictest sense of the word, “Sinners” is one of the best music movies in some time.
Of course, “Sinners” is a horror movie, and a gnarly one at that. These are no genteel bloodsuckers in the Lugosi/Pattinson vein, but rather primal creatures of the American id – think the wild and woolly figures of the Tarantino/Rodriguez genre mashup “From Dusk Till Dawn” (1996). That film is a good point of reference here in terms of its one-night-in-a-roadhouse conceit and its raucous, thrill-ride energy. “Sinners” takes on heady themes of racism and tradition, but it is first and foremost a bloody good time at the movies, and one can imagine it taking its place in the pantheon of Halloween sleepover traditions.
As befitting a filmmaker returning from the franchise mines, “Sinners” is positively stuffed with ideas, characters and mythology. At nearly two and a half hours some viewers might find it tiring, particularly in requiring multiple “endings” to wrap up various plot threads. But in this age of endless reboots and rehashes, too many ideas is far preferable to too few, and it’s hard to begrudge a film so enraptured with its own possibilities. This is what Hollywood genre filmmaking should be.
At Landmark Kendall Square Cinema, 355 Binney St., Cambridge; Apple Cinemas Cambridge, 168 Alewife Brook Parkway, Cambridge Highlands near Alewife and Fresh Pond; and AMC Assembly Row 12, 395 Artisan Way, Assembly Square, Somerville.
Oscar Goff is a writer and film critic based in Somerville. He is film editor and senior critic for the Boston Hassle and his work has appeared in the monthly Boston Compass newspaper and publications such as WBUR’s The ARTery and iHeartNoise. He is a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, and the Online Film Critics Society.
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