‘Sinners’ review: Michael B. Jordan plays twins in an intoxicating Southern vampire flick
SINNERS
Running time: 137 minutes. Rated R (strong bloody violence, sexual content and language). In theaters.
The South and vampires go together like wooden stakes and undead hearts.
Anne Rice put classy Lestat’s feeding grounds in New Orleans, Louisiana, and the trashy vamps of “True Blood” got steamy in the bayou nearby.
The warm locale reliably spices up these chilly guys.
Now, director Ryan Coogler, of “Black Panther” and “Creed” fame, moves his sultry Draculas one state over — to Mississippi — in the transfixing film “Sinners,” a shrewd genre-bender that blends the blues, religious fervor and the violent hatred of the Jim Crow era into a magic spell.
The air down South is thicker than blood, and heat and passion pulse, even through the mounting number of characters who have no pulse.
“Sinners” begins arrestingly, with young Sammie (an innocent Miles Caton concealing hidden mischief) storming into a church covered in dirt and bodily fluids.
Then we rewind 24 hours to the arrival of mysterious twin brothers Smoke and Stack, both convincingly and charismatically played by Michael B. Jordan, who are returning home from Chicago to open a juke joint that very night.
Unusual for this kind of movie, for a long stretch viewers forget they’re watching a horror film.
In gentle small-town scenes — OK, an unlucky fellow is occasionally shot in the leg — the pair drives around gathering supplies, hiring bartenders and enlisting a blues band, including Sammie, a preacher’s son who sings and plays guitar against his strict father’s wishes.
The upbeat mood, occasionally broken by the harsh political climate of 1932, is a “getting the band back together” sort.
When everybody is finally gathered to drink and party in a retrofitted barn — old flames (like Hailee Steinfeld’s Mary and Wunmi Mosaku’s Annie), new sparks (Jayme Lawson’s Pearline) and hardworking friends — we’re soon ripped back to deadly, fanged reality.
Coogler, who also wrote the screenplay, puts forth music — blues, rock and, notably here, celtic — as a ritualistic conjuring force. Bbatboys are drawn to it like bees to honey.
During one remarkably bold sequence in the shed, timelines past and present blur as characters writhe and stop and an imaginary fire rages around them. And evil lurks outside.
The effect reminded me of the Charlie Daniels Band fiddle song “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” and could be super cheesy. But Coogler approaches it with such confidence that it turns intoxicating.
I was wary of Jordan doing double duty after Robert De Niro tried a similar trick in another Warner Bros. movie, the mob film “The Alto Knights,” only a month ago.
However, the “Creed” actor doesn’t overdo the twins’ differences to comic effect. They’re mostly separated by one wearing a blue newsboy cap and the other donning a red fedora, and slightly contrasting demeanors. Smoke is more of a lover, while Stack is a fighter.
As “Sinners” intensifies, you forget you’re watching just one actor. Always a feat.
And, although Coogler returns the film to scary during his gory-ish finale, it’s never terrifying and stays quite funny and playful. There are some haunting images, but you won’t lose sleep over them. I know, for many of you, that’s a turn off at this kind of movie.
But in combining the old genre tropes with a potent message — the eternal recipe for a great horror film — the ever-entertaining director again shows he has something forceful to say, be it with boxers, superheroes or blood-suckin’ vampires.
