Twin brothers Smoke and Stack (Michael B. Jordan and Michael B. Jordan) return to Mississippi after a stint in Chicago, with plans to open their own juke joint. Most of the first hour is them setting things up for opening night. Getting the booze and food arranged, the sign, the security, and most importantly, the music. That's going to be provided by Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) and Sammie (Miles Caton.) Delta's a blues man through and through, adept with a bunch of instruments. Sammie's a guitar player, with a real gift.
Or curse, if you prefer, because his playing and singing attract the attention of an Irish vampire (Jack O'Connell) named Remmick, and a couple of people he's already turned. As things go downhill, it turns into a standoff between a dwindling number of holdouts inside the building, and an increasing number of vampires outside.
When the opening narration explains that there have always been people with voices that can pierce the veil between living and the dead, and this can be used for good or evil, I figured Sammie's voice was going to be the source of both the problem and the solution. And it is his singing, combined with his guitar playing, that draws Remmick, in a scene where the people dancing and celebrating span generations, decades. '80s breakdancers and beatboxers, tribal drummers and singers from Africa, all connected to Sammie by history and culture and, I assume, just the love of music and what it can express about the human soul.
That said, Sammie's gift does not save the day. Ryan Coogler's not going for the kind of film where this teenager, so eager to become an adult like his cool older cousins, is going to open a door to Hell with his singing. But I at least expected, given how we first see Sammie stagger into his father's church the following morning, gripping the broken bridge of the guitar, to use it to stake a vamp. Nope! (The guitar does buy Sammie a few critical seconds, but it's not a finishing blow.) Either that, or him praying was going to make the water they were standing in holy water and oops, bad luck for the vamps. But no, wrong again.
Caton's very good; wide-eyed, eager to both learn and impress. He wants to show what he can do, and he wants to break out of this life of picking cotton and being pious that his father's trying to push him into. He wants what he thinks Smoke and Stack have, but doesn't understand how they got to where they were, or what they lost along the way. I think that's why I really enjoy the first stretch of the film, all the prep. It introduces us to a lot of characters, and kind of shows the lay of the land - the Chows having a grocery store on each side of the street, one the white folks use and one black folks use - but also shows bits and pieces of the twins' pasts, and who they are.
Smoke (I kept thinking the names were being switched, and that it was on purpose, the brothers wanting to confuse others on who's who) encouraging the girl he hires to watch his truck to negotiate a higher wage, then shooting both guys who try to steal his liquor to make a point. (Also, I liked the line, 'Where you going? I bet this bullet gets there first.' It was clever, truthful, and threatening.) Or Stack being eager to gather attention at all times, loud and brash and confident, until Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) walks up, and then it's "keep your voice down."
It's a good stretch of film, lets Jordan show the depth of both characters beyond the dangerous glares and slick talk. Smoke's visit to Annie in particular, where they sort of talk around his leaving, talk about the child they lost, the danger Smoke and Stack are courting with this business of theirs, because they didn't exactly acquire their booze legally. You can kind of see how these guys have run from this place more than once - WWI, Chicago, the town run by black people they tell Sammie about - because there are things here they can't handle or don't want to deal with. Yet they keep getting drawn back somehow. Either because it isn't any better anywhere else, or there's just a pull that home has, even if it was terrible.
Granted, most of the stuff I've reviewed that was new to me this year has been middling at best, shit at worst - looking at you, Track of the Cat - but Sinners is easily the best movie I've watched so far this year.
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