Now this is exciting. As fun as Creed and Black Panther are, Ryan Coogler was still hamstrung by working within the bounds of the studio system and their IP requirements. Those successes have creatively freed him to do what he wants to do. And if Sinners gives us a glimpse of what’s to come in Coogler’s future, then we’re on the precipice of a decade of exciting, incredible filmmaking by one of the best filmmakers working today.
Coogler immerses us in 1930’s Clarksdale Mississippi. Twins Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan) have come back from Chicago, in hopes to open a juke joint for the community with their riches. We see them recruit a band to play: including the twins’ cousin Sammie (Miles Caton), and legendary drunk musician Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo). They go across town and recruit Bo (Yao) and Grace (Li Jun Li) Chow, Annie (Wunmi Mosaku) and Cornbread (Omar Benson Miller) to manage/cater the event. However, Sammie’s musical gifts seem to have a way of drawing all sorts of people to the juke joint’s opening night, including Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), former VERY close friend to Smoke/Stack and Remmick (Jack O’Connell), a mysterious figure who happens to like what he hears.
Coolger’s so good at establishing a sense of place in his movies. In one day, we completely understand the goings on in Clarksdale Mississippi. The director makes that first hour of Smoke and Stack recruiting their various friends/family to run the juke joint, completely riveting. Jim Crow South immediately even makes basic interactions 15% more tense, as the whole town is on edge even on a Saturday morning in the market, splintering the greater Clarksdale community into little factions. The Chow’s take on a greater significance in a place like this, cause they can have their feet in all worlds, making as much money as they can. There’s endless fields of cotton, only briefly interrupted by sharecropping shacks that show how the black families still feel like slaves even though technically, they aren’t. Religion infuses everyone’s belief system in some way, whether it be church services or voodoo adjacent rituals, or the “church of money and power.” The train station is the real exciting location, where anyone exciting or dangerous could show up or depart, dressed in Weekend Best. And then we get to the big juke joint, showing us how the suppressed black community finds ways to express themselves, through all sorts of means, good and bad. Ryan Coogler gives us a Clarksdale most of us probably would struggle to live in, but also would understand how a place like this could birth a musical cultural revolution greater than anything anyone there could have imagined.
Because while Ryan Coogler calls this movie Sinners, it really is about Rhythm & Blues. The opening parable fortells something magical happening when the circumstance are just right during a musical performance. Coogler turns that premonition into incredible reality with his masterpiece right at the movie’s midpoint. It’s this thematically rich, complex study of how great music transcends place and time, as people from all walks of life come to partake in the greatness happening around them. The amazing director takes that amorphous complex idea and brings it vividly to life in a way only he could have come up with, translating a written idea to a big screen one. But, as the title ominously states, an even that powerful isn’t just noticed by the good people. Vampires far and wide will come flocking to this place as well, just to get a taste of something special. That pure sound then becomes tainted by various temptations, threatening to extract its essence for personal gain; even seemingly noble sounding temptations like religion or love. Coogler weaves all these ideas into his rich tapestry of a film…while also really dialing up the action, and the sexiness, up to a 10 as we push towards Sinners’s conclusion.
Untethered Ryan Coogler is great for everyone. Here’s hoping he gets more chances to make things wholly his own, because whatever’s going on in that guy’s brain it’s up to us to keep his essence alive and flowing, as much as Coogler is able to. And if we’re lucky, we’ll get a chance to be a part of something special and exciting every time, or if that’s not working for ya, at least sultry smokeshows like Michael B. Jordan and Hailee Steinfeld can tickle your fancy? Poor Josh Allen; it’s gonna be a weird training camp for him.