Wrenage reviewed Sinners when it was released in movie theatres, and he gave it a generous 3 out of 5 stars. It’s now on streaming, so I gave it a watch.
I will admit, I wasn’t looking forward to it. You know how some movies come out, everyone raves about them, and it kind of turns you off a bit towards them? That was me with Sinners.
Everyone was raving about it, including someone I know who only liked it because Hailee Steinfeld was in it.
However, I did my best to go into it with an open mind and give it a fair viewing. On the flip side, I was not going to like it just because it’s a Ryan Coogler movie, which some people online seemed to be doing.
Sinners stars Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton, Saul Williams, Andrene Ward-Hammond, Jack O’Connell, Tenaj L. Jackson, Omar Benson Miller, and Delroy Lindo.
The Story
In a nutshell, Sinners is From Dusk Till Dawn: two brothers, who are on the run, head to a night club where they are attacked by vampires. The official blurb is:
Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.
This isn’t all that accurate to be honest. To give a full review, I will have to delve into spoilers, which I will try to highlight as we go.
We see Sammie (Caton) first, who’s had a rough night. His guitar is smashed, a scar is on his face, and he’s covered in blood. Brief flashbacks, exactly like the ones used in From Dusk Till Dawn, where Richie kills the hostage in the motel, reveal that something has attacked him.
Smoke and Stack (both played by Jordan, meaning an actor has lost a job, as they could have had two separate roles) are villains, but successful ones. In fact, at one point, one of them says he’s travelled around the world, which is good going for a black man from the South of the USA in the 1930s.
They return home to open a jazz joint and go legit. I’m not going to say which one said what, as they are basically exactly the same characters, but just have different hats. Everyone in the town knows them, and they are “nice” criminals, well, to a point. When someone tries to rob their van, one of them shoots him in the ass.
Everyone sees this and later decides to go to his jazz joint for a drink. If I saw someone shoot a guy in the ass, then got invited to his club, I probably wouldn’t go, but the movie needs to happen.
Something Is Missing
In the town, there are pretty much no white people. There is a Chinese couple that owns two shops, but there are only a few extras that are white. Segregation was a big thing back then, but a whole town without white folk?
This will become a theme in Sinners.
In the one day they have been back in town, they get a venue, booze, a band, waitresses, bouncers, a sign painted and everything else one might need to open the jazz joint. Impressive, no wonder they were such good job robbers, I don’t think these guys can make any mistakes.
Love interests show up, one is Hailee Steinfeld and the other is Beatrice, who’s a witch, which helps the narrative later.
Also, of course, both women will save the day near the end of the movie.
The rest of Sinners is From Dusk till Dawn, but told in a very different way. As in, nowhere near as much fun.
The Good
Sinners is not a bad movie. The photography is nice, the acting is very good, and I really enjoyed the music.
I feel like Coogler is becoming like Snyder: give them a good script, and they make a good movie. However, no one is brave enough to say to them:
‘Dude, you can direct, but don’t do your own writing’
People seemingly cannot say it to Coogler.
Jordan is excellent in this, apart from his accent. There’s something about the Southern Drawl that makes it hard to understand sometimes.
It was an odd choice for Jordan to play twin brothers, as there was no need for it. As I said, he just got one pay cheque, but played two roles. There’s an actor out there who could have played his brother, but no.
The rest of the cast are all very good, apart from the Southern thing.
The photography in Sinners is very good, with some long and drawn-out shots… but at the same time, many of these are pointless. There’s a shot where a young Chinese girl walks out of a shop, across the road, gets her mum, and then we follow her back. It’s nice, but totally unnecessary.
Sinners has a great soundtrack. I’m a fan of the blues and love that era of music, I would totally get the soundtrack to listen to in the car.
The Bad
As I have said, Coogler is a good director, but he’s one of those writers who seemingly might not listen to outside input.
The plot holes in Sinners are as big as ‘your mom’. For example, here are some questions:
- Everyone who goes to the club seems to work on a plantation (the brothers say it’s all ‘plantation money’), but everyone seems to afford cars? Most of the people who are invited to the jazz joint live in crappy houses, with people sleeping on the floor, but they can afford cars?
- When the musicians from the past and future are called by the ‘devil’s music’, why aren’t there any white musicians? Is it only ethnic people who can call vampires with their music?
- Also, why are dancers called back as well? There’s a ballet dancer at one point, she only dances, she doesn’t make music.
- The vampires have to be invited in, but in the end, everyone who drove away gets bitten and turned into one. Does the invitation only work on houses? Or if you had the windows up on a car, does that mean they can’t get into cars unless you invite them into the car?
- How come one vampire can fly, but none of the others do? I guess it was because he was the chief one.
I will admit, I got some of the US history wrong in my head. I thought the movie was closer to the time of 12 Years a Slave, where if you were behind on cotton picking, you got a whipping.
That was closer to 1850. Sinners is set in the 1930s, around 70 years after the end of slavery in the US.
By the 1930s, most black people still faced high unemployment rates and segregation, often taking manual work, but I’m just glad they made enough to buy cars, according to Sinners.
*Spoilers Ahead*
When we meet the head vampire, he’s running towards a house in the daylight. He’s burning, but not dying, even though he had to run, in open ground, with the sun setting but still shining, and doesn’t die. At the end of the movie, the sun rises, and he gets set on fire.
In the same scene as above, there is a group of Native Americans who are chasing him, planning to kill him. They don’t and drive off, and we never heard from them again.
Why introduce them, just to have them leave? They seem to know he was a vampire, and maybe they were vampire hunters? We can’t have them save the day, though, as we need to leave that to the other folks.
Who Saves The Day?
Sinners does what most Hollywood movies do and has the women save the day.
At the end, when everyone finds out they are facing vampires, Beatrice knows how to deal with them and gets everyone prepared. Because it’s vampires, one of the brothers loses the plot and is about to give up.
It’s OK, though, a Chinese woman talks him out of it. Yay, the ethnically different female saves the day; she’s empowering women.
Well, she does do that and then manages to invite all of the vampires into the club, making her the stupidest protagonist in the movie. So, are women great or stupid? I’m so confused.
If This Were The Other Way Around…
Sinners is a black movie, and it really rams it down your throat.
Movies like 12 Years a Slave show how tough life was for black people in the South and how they faced genuine persecution.
Sinners is all about how bad the white man is.
I know we joke about it, but I never really notice the colour of actors or anything in stories. However, here, you simply aren’t allowed to not notice.
There are two main white characters, one is the Grand Dragon of the clan, the other is the main vampire. I couldn’t help but think ‘If this was race-swapped, it would be offensive’.
This is something I thought a lot about during this movie.
That One Shot
The scene where the old and new musicians are summoned is impressive. It’s all done in one take, although there are clever cuts in it. I’m still not sure about the whole idea of calling musicians from the past and future by playing certain music.
It’s weird that the music will call musicians from the past, but also summon vampires. Is it good music or bad music?
I said before, in this scene, only black performers are called by the music. So, only black people can play this music that summons vampires? Vampire summoning music sounds evil to me. I’m still confused.
OK, so there are no white musicians, but what about people like Jimi Hendrix or 2Pac? Is their music not good enough that you could have had a look-alike for them?
In fact, who’s this guy? Apologies if he is a famous musician, but I have no idea who he is.
Spoilers About The Ending
I have to talk about the ending, as it was good, but also just stupid. As I said, the silly Chinese lady invites the vampires in, and there’s a fight, a stupid fight.
About 50 vampires all storm in and fight the 6 main protagonists. There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell they would have survived!
They go with the whole ‘vampires have to be invited in’ gambit, which made zero sense. They work out they can’t hurt them if they can’t get in, so just shut the door, have a drink, and wait till it all blows over at sunrise.
No, instead, let’s have a fight, against impossible odds and have good death scenes for all the main people. #yawn
At the end, everyone is outside, and the main vampire is fighting Sammie. He hits him with his guitar and puts a slice of metal in his temple.
This seems to affect every other vampire (as he is the chief one), but at no point did any other injury to him affect anyone else. Was it silver in the guitar? I thought silver only worked on werewolves.
Anyway, the sun comes up and everyone catches on fire. The main vampire catches fire and takes a good couple of minutes to die. This was odd, as the first time we met him, as I said, he was running away from some Native Americans, in the sunlight.
Does it kill him or not? Make your mind up movie!
After the end
Sinners doesn’t finish after the final fight. It then turns out, more of the evil white men (some of the clan) turn up to kill the brothers.
At this point, one of the brothers pulls out an arsenal of weapons, including a sniper rifle, a Tommy gun with ammo, and a few hand grenades.
It isn’t clear if these were on the truck outside or in the building, but I couldn’t help thinking it would have been handy in a fight against vampires!
One of the brothers shoots a man who’s already badly injured, firing about 50 rounds into him with a Tommy gun. Again, I thought that if the racial roles were swapped, it would have been offensive.
After The End Of The Ending
We then have another ending, which is 50 years after the events. It shows which of the vampires survived, and they visit Sammie, now an old man. This showed how the violent criminal wasn’t actually all that bad. #awwww
Sammie takes his beat-up guitar at the end of the main action, and is still using it when he’s older.
How did he never end up playing the vampire summoning music again? Don’t know, he just didn’t. He played it at the jazz joint, but never again in 50 years?
The ending, after the ending, was pointless. It’s not like this was based on a true story, and we needed to catch up with all the players.
Overall
Sinners is like so many movies, is a great idea, spoiled by bad writing.
If Coogler had got someone else in and done a few rewrites, it would have been so much better. As I have said, his direction is spot on in places, but you’re questioning the plot holes.
The plot holes wouldn’t have been an issue if the entire movie hadn’t taken itself so seriously. I get the impression Coogler’s direction was ‘This might win you an Oscar, so play it out that way’.
The performances are good, but since it’s all so serious, you can’t have bad writing.
Comparing Sinners to From Dusk till Dawn, the main difference is the tone. Dusk never takes itself seriously; it’s all over the top, tongue in cheek, and everyone is having fun.
Obviously, Coogler is trying to set himself up as a serious director. I see him winning an Oscar at some point in his career. He is very good, and he’s been nominated before.
In fact, I’ll call it now and say it could win an Oscar for Sinners. He’ll win for his direction, though, but not for his writing. We haven’t had a Steve McQueen movie for a while, as in the Oscar-winning director, not the motorbike-riding actor.
I’m giving Sinners 2 out of 5 stars. It’s an interesting watch, with some great performances and beautiful photography, but don’t overthink the plot or notice to much about it.
