Sinners: Blues, Blood and B-Movie Mayhem

SINNERS | A FILM OF TWO HALVES

Three Hollywood majors in the shape of Sony, Universal, and Warners (who won) were all in a bidding war for the rights to Sinners. Fighting over the screenplay, the film production rights, and the distribution deals. Director Ryan Coogler had already offered up previous promise and commercial success with three films via his own back catalogue; namely the social realism of Fruitvale Station (2014), a Rocky movie called Creed (2016), and a Marvel ‘epic’ Black Panther (2018). Coogler certainly looked like he was onto a winner with Sinners. Since early April, this film has been doing great box office returns internationally, but with some lukewarm reviews amid the good ones. Some have compared this film to Dusk Till Dawn (1996), the renowned Robert Rodriguez movie with a screenplay by Quentin Tarantino.

But is it any good?

What were we promised? Well? Certainly a promise of an all-encompassing history of the birth of Juke House ‘Joints’. The term for Blues Barn venues set up in the ‘Jim Crow’ period of the cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta, during the Prohibition era of Al Capone. Sinners is an epic Hollywood-backed movie shot on location in the deep American South. A journey back in time, featuring period clothes, real working vintage cars and trains, stunning cinematography, exemplary casting, great performances, and a revealing script. All embracing a killer soundtrack of songs, and music to beat all comers – both from before, and still to come. This was the promise to the backers, allegedly.

A tall order!

Did the team deliver? Yes! So this film is a ‘must see’ movie? It’s certainly worth seeing, but with some very real reservations… And I don’t mean seat bookings.

There is, however, a lot to this film with its ensemble cast. Notably, Michael P. Jordan playing a dual role as a pair of brothers who are sharp Dandy Hoods from Chicago, returning to a previous life that will be their ‘new’ present. They’ve also arrived to start up a music venue. We witness Smoke & Stack’s lightning impact upon this small community of farmers, landlords, and ex-girlfriends. R&B singer Miles Caton is the strongest character in his debut screen role as a musician who is ‘The Son of a Preacher Man’, called Sammie.

A complicated set of ensemble cast roles ensue. All with complex personal stories. Therefore we do begin to wonder where this slow narrative is likely to go?

INTERMISSION

A TV DREAM SEQUENCE APPEARS ON SCREEN – A FLASHBACK TO SCOTTISH ITV IN 1970

A local match reporter from STV’s Sports department has been in the pub. He phones in ‘live’ from a payphone to deliver a report about a football game between Partick Thistle and Airdrie. He nonchalantly says to the anchor, the late Arthur Montford, “It was a game of two halves, Arthur!” My uncle would’ve said, “Aye! No half.”

In the case of Sinners? There’s two halves too. One good half followed by the other half that was, quite frankly, bloody awful. Just like Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987) which was two films in one movie. Our STV reporter might’ve ventured – if still alive in 2025 – “Full Metal Jacket, and Sinners? Aye. Two films. Four halves – Arthur.” The ever-friendly Arthur Montford probably would’ve said, “Bargain. You got four halves there, Shuggie, nae bad.”

A neat commercial should follow this with Arthur the Cockney Cat, sticking his paw into a tin of cat food, saying, “I was a big fan of Arthur Montford, you know!”

THE INTERMISSION ENDS

PART TWO OF SINNERS

Blood spewed forth across a full widescreen of human giblets. All sonically amplified in 4K while ‘squirting’ in surround sound. Dolby has even allowed the vampires to hiss. Vampires in a blues movie? Yes – vampires appear out of the cotton fields and insinuate themselves into the proceedings. This is apparently deemed to be far better visually than meeting the ‘Devil at the Crossroads’ like the old bluesman Robert Johnson did back in his day.

So if you’d genuinely like to watch a vampire zombie movie with the main characters suddenly becoming victims of fangs, it’s all here in this uncensored, blood-spurting, flesh-eating, Warner horror epic. Sinners would be better suited to a B-movie grindhouse cinema like the 37-seater venue that’s just opening in Farringdon.

If heavy gore is your particular blood bag? Turn up 90 minutes late to watch only the last half of this three-hour epic. Dress up as Vlad the Impaler. Bring along a beatbox playing out Warren Zevon’s Werewolves of London, and sing along, “Ah-Hoo. Werewolves of London when in Soho and Mayfair.” Just don’t do this when sat inside the Curzons situated in Soho and Mayfair – okay? They might just ban you. The Prince Charles Cinema, however, might just schedule it: Sing-along-Sinners, “‘Ah-Hoo!”

Footnote: Sinners didn’t have an intermission. If it did? I’d’ve left 90 minutes earlier.

Meanwhile, the brand new Nickel Cinema, celebrating ‘Grindhouse Classics’, opens from 11th June. This is London’s newest cinema – the only independent grindhouse cinema with a stage and bar in Britain! Listings: http://thenickel.co.uk + @thenickelcinema

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