‘Sinners’ review: sink your teeth into Ryan Coogler’s bloodthirsty blues horror

Juke joints. Chain gangs. Cotton picking. The KKK. Ryan Coogler’s Sinners takes us right into the 1930s Deep South for a gory phantasm that sings the blues. If the Coen Brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the Robert Rodriguez & Quentin Tarantino mash-up From Dusk Till Dawn had a love child, it might look something like this. Michael B. Jordan leads – playing twin brothers – but it’s Coogler’s imagination that stars.

After directing true-life drama Fruitvale Station, Rocky spin-off Creed and Marvel’s Black Panther as well as its sequel Wakanda Forever, Sinners is Coogler’s first wholly original story and sees him reunite with lucky charm Jordan for their fifth movie together. He plays both Stack and Smoke, twins from Clarksdale, Mississippi, who return home after years away fighting in World War One before working for notorious gangster Al Capone in Chicago. Jordan gives a credible turn as Smoke and Stack – but the performances aren’t so distinct that these two siblings are easy to tell apart. Just keep an eye on their outfits.

The boys are back in town with plans to set up a juke joint blues bar in the woods, which means buying land, recruiting musicians and stocking up on supplies. They quickly invite their nifty, steel guitar-playing cousin Sammie AKA Preacher Boy (Miles Caton) to get involved alongside Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo, on fantastic form), a boozy harmonica player who will do just about anything for a bottle of beer.

Their fledgling enterprise has to survive the wrath of the headstrong Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) and Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), who were both previously abandoned by Stack and Smoke. “Rot in hell, Stack,” cries Mary, prophetically. But the real meat comes when the wastrel Remmick (Jack O’Connell) turns up with a couple of mysterious buddies. Without giving too much away, this trio are not what they seem. Let’s just say Coogler flirts with the mythology of blues without actually showing us the world’s first rock star Robert Johnson selling his soul to the Devil.

Sinners really comes to life via the musical numbers. Coogler’s longterm creative partner Ludwig Göransson, who won an Oscar for crafting Black Panther’s music, conjures up a masterful, blues-soaked score. Coogler uses it to prove just how influential the genre is via a spellbinding sequence that tracks through the juke joint, whirling around Preacher Boy and showcasing a hip-hop DJ, an MC and an electric guitarist.

Such anachronisms add to the film’s feeling of fantasy but Coogler also tackles serious themes such as the oppression of Black Americans by white folk during this period. Sadly, the stop-start final act doesn’t quite stitch together all the disparate elements. Viewers are thrown from a Shaun Of The Dead-inspired pub shootout to a 1992 coda that features a legendary cameo from a blues icon. It’s all a bit balmy, but it does boast one absolutely killer line from Lindo as the scares ramp up: “I think I shat myself.” If you’re a nervy viewer, be warned.