Words by JANE CROWTHER

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When twins Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan via unobtrusive CGI sleight of hand) return to their Mississippi home after fighting in WW1 and then brawling in Chicago, they’ve seen some things. Having made some cash by disreputable means in the north, the brothers are gold-toothed, tailored and handy with guns and knives – and set on opening their own juke joint in their old neighbourhood. They may pop a bullet in a would-be thief’s ass without a care, operate as a slick unit and move through the world with a cocky stride (unless they’re talking to the women they left behind), but they’re about to be shaken by ungodly sights on opening night…

Rooted in the myth of a blues player paying for their talent via a deal with the devil (it’s set in Clarksville, the location for Robert Johnson’s crossroads), Ryan Coogler’s seductive, steamy take on From Dusk Til Dawn may not serve up a new scenario – one night in a bar beset by vampires – but it does provide a multi-layered, evocative and stylish night out on the sauce. In Coogler’s hands, a war for souls in a Jim Crow world has much to say about race, poverty, warfare, grief, colonisation and music, and the fact that though set in prohibition America, certain things remain depressingly the same as they ever were. 

The bigger socio-political picture is wrapped in a compellingly small human story that unfolds as the brothers enlist a gang to open their club in an old sawmill. Their cousin Sammie (Miles Canton) may be a preacher’s boy but he plays the blues like Satan himself and will lose his innocence before the sun rises. Voodoo priestess Annie (Wunmi Mosaku) is brought in as chef and provides spiritual leadership as well as finger-lickin’ catfish. Drunk musician Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) is co-opted as an act but has seen it all before; Chinese storekeepers Bo and Grace (Yao and Li Jun Li) bring the equipment and a marital quandary, while Stack’s ex Mary (Hailey Steinfeld) and a sunburnt stranger (Jack O’Connell) are white visitors who mess with the vibe in different ways.

Gorgeously costumed (Ruth E. Carter), lensed (filmed in IMAX with a thank you note to Christopher Nolan in the end credits) and production designed (Hannah Beachler); Sinners may be peopled by intriguing characters but its music is also one. Ludwig Göransson’s lush score is sultry, soulful and needs to be heard in the surround sound of a cinema, not waited for at home. It provides a standout sequence at the midpoint when the beer is flowing and the blues are slapping, when music connects past, present and future and – for the duration of a song – everything seems right with the world. It’s exactly the sort of poetic, pertinent and ballsy moment we’ve come to expect from Coogler and connects deliciously to a cheeky mid-credit and post-credit sting. Bloody good stuff.

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Words by JANE CROWTHER
Photographs by ELI ADÉ/WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC.
Sinners is in cinemas now