Sinners (2025) ****

 

From writer/director Ryan Coogler (“Black Panther”, “Creed”), “Sinners” is an exploration of race and family issues, wrapped up in a vampire movie.

Michael B. Jordan, a frequent Coogler collaborator, plays twin brothers Smoke and Stack, a couple of 1930s gangsters recently moved back to the small Mississippi town where they grew up. Flush with money and booze from ripping off their Chicago Mob bosses, the brothers buy an old sawmill and convert it into a juke joint. They recruit musicians, including their cousin Sammie (Miles Catton), and run into some old flames, and things seem to be going well until opening night gets crashed by a clan of vampires.

“Sinners” probably doesn't hold up to a close plot analysis, but enjoyed on the surface, it's a hoot! A talented, good-looking cast and a great soundtrack of blues and folk music make the 2h 17m run-time pass more easily than it should. I got the impression somewhere that the movie is a musical, but it isn't; it just has a ton of music and dancing in it.

The most interesting character in the film is Stack's ex-girlfriend, Mary (Hailee Steinfeld). She is one quarter Black, which, by the Jim Crow laws of the time, made her legally Black, and therefore a second-class citizen. She is so light, though, that she passes as White, and she really has no choice but to do so. If a White-looking woman like her were seen with a Black man at that time, it would arouse racist anger. So she is married to a white man and lives in constant danger of being outed as Black.

Meanwhile, Smoke and Stack have learned that getting away from Mississippi did not mean getting away from racism. Chicago doesn't have the Klan, but the city has plenty of ways to remind the brothers what color they are. As Stack tells his guitar-playing cousin when asked why they would move back to the South, “Better the devil you know.”

“Sinners” explores these racial issues, but it does not belabor them. Ryan Coogler knows how to keep the story going with action, sex, and, of course, some fantastic music. If the film leans a bit superficial, erring on the side of entertaining rather than preaching, well, that's no sin. At the end of the day, “Sinners” is a good mix of food for thought with candy for the eyes and ears.

4 stars out of 5