Review by Tim Robins
Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back…
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Sinners is a sumptuous evocation of African-American lives in the deep South that revisits tropes from horror films such as The Thing and From Dusk Till Dawn (1996). I’m not saying rush to see it. I am saying that, if you are looking for a new film to watch at the cinema, go watch this.
Sinners is very much a film of two halves. The first, sees ‘Smoke’ and ‘Stack’, twin African-American gangsters (both played by the charismatic Michael B Jordan, with an air of humour, charm and ready violence), use their ill-gotten gains to organise a Juke Joint, a music, gambling and entertainment venue. To this end, they recruit old friends and former lovers to set up the event.
Hoping for a piece of the action is young Sammie, the twins’ cousin and the son of a Pastor. His father, Jedadiah is none too impressed with Sammie’s choice to become a blues guitarist. For his part, Sammie (Miles Caton) must decide between his father’s faith and a chance to play the Blues – “The Devil’s Music” according to his father.
As the film progresses, it seems that the Devil has plans for everyone we’ve come to know and love in the form of Remmick (Jack O’Connell), who turns up at a small homestead looking for sanctuary. The homesteaders invite him in, it’s a decision they will regret, as their guest is hellbent on recruiting a following among the undead. The second half of the film sees Remmick attempt to use music and the ‘charm of the Irish’ to seduce everyone in the Juke Joint.
Sinners focuses on the experience of three men and is something of a coming-of-age story for young Sammie. That said, this is very much an ensemble cast, with women in key roles. Wunmie Mosaku’s Annie provides emotional and spiritual support for her ex, Smoke. The former couple are united by the loss of their baby and by their remaining sexual attraction. Annie stands at the crossroads between folk belief and Christianity. She is among the first to recognise and suggest weapons against the returning threat posed by the undead.
Director and writer Ryan Coogler is probably best known for his first MCU Black Panther film (2018) but don’t hold that against him. I mean, Black Panther may have been an international blockbuster with some interesting takes on its villain, Eric Kilmonger, but it couldn’t shake the implicit racism embodied in Lee and Kirby’s character and had a disappointing climax that descended into CGI slop.
Sinners gets it much more right, with a sophisticated mix of schlock horror and themes of memory, loss and empowerment – culminating in two bravura moments. The first is a scene of violent excess that recalls the bloody, absurdist shoot-outs in the movies of Quentin Tarrantino. Here, it’s one black man with a whole lot of guns vs the local chapter of the KKK.
The second moment is a during-the-end-credits scene, set in a bar decades later. There’s a palpable tension when old adversaries meet. We wait for a final, generic, horror coda, but what we get instead is a commemoration of the characters shared past. Ironically, their shared memory is one of the few positive moments of reminiscence in the film. In some ways, the bloody conflict of the past is recalled by its survivors as the best day and night of their lives.
Music is at the heart of Sinners, a story told through song and dance. Coogler locates the music in the historical, cultural context of black lives that matter in a specific place and time. Sammie’s music is the continuity between past and present. As people dance, his music leads to a bravura, magical, moment. The Joint becomes a crossroads for music past and present.
The Blues also exists in tension between white and black people and cultures. As Slim puts it, “White folks like the blues just fine, they just don’t like the people who make it.” We are reminded that the story of the Blues can also be seen as the story of white folk and the music industry appropriating African-American music.
Coogler trends exuberantly into this territory and owns it for African-Americans, by drawing on the history of black people in America. Just because something is a positive or negative trope, such tropes can arise from reality. Like music, it depends on how they are played out.
Making Remmick an Irish-American was a touch of genius. Irish immigrants, fleeing to America in the wake of The Great Famine, became known as the “Black Irish”. There are a number of explanations for why Americans of the time used this label: the willingness of the new immigrants to mix with the African-American population and those Irish people with black hair, dark eyes and/or darker skin tone were thought to have descended from Iberia, survivors of the Spanish Armada. In cartoons, Irish people and black people shared the trope of being represented as apes or ape-like.
“Black” has also existed as a label that has been applied to others, appropriately and inappropriately, in an attempt to forge an imaginary identification with people oppressed in different ways. Take, for example, Jimmy Rabbite’s speech in The Commitments (1991)… “Do you not get it, lads? The Irish are the blacks of Europe. And Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland. And the Northside Dubliners are the blacks of Dublin. So say it once, say it loud: I’m black and I’m proud.”
Juke Joints were often located at crossroads, so the film’s themes and settings evoke the legend of Robert Leroy Johnson, who played venues within the Mississippi Delta. Legend has it that Johnson met the Devil at a crossroads, and it was the Devil who tuned his guitar before handing it back to him.
In Sinners we are told that Sammie’s playing has summoned the Devil. It hasn’t, but by the time we meet Sammie near the film’s end, and he stands at the entrance to his father’s church, every nerve in my body was screaming out for his Father not to invite him in. Schlock horror or not, you will actually care about the characters, if not pray for their souls.
If you can get to see Sinners in a cinema, go see it, although I’m sure streaming will also be fine, particularly on a biggish TV screen. But, whatever you do, don’t miss it. That really would be a sin.
Tim Robins
Sinners is in cinemas now
Further Watching and Reading
• GQ: Sinners‘ Irish vampires – and that Irish jig – explained by Jack O’Connell
• The Rocky Road to Dublin (Ballad History)
• Oxford Research Encyclopaedias: Southern Gothic Literature
An article by Thomas Ærvold Bjerre
• Exploring US History: The Alien Menace
An article by Michael O’Malley, Associate Professor of History and Art History, George Mason University, discussing cartoon representations of the Irish as apes or ape-like. Be aware this article includes examples of these contemporary cartoons
- About the Author
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A freelance journalist and Doctor Who fanzine editor since 1978, Tim Robins has written on comics, films, books and TV programmes for a wide range of publications including Starburst, Interzone, Primetime and TV Guide.
His brief flirtation with comics includes ghost inking a 2000AD strip and co-writing a Doctor Who strip with Mike Collins. Since 1990 he worked at the University of Glamorgan where he was a Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Media Studies and the social sciences. Academically, he has published on the animation industry in Wales and approaches to social memory. He claims to be a card carrying member of the Politically Correct, a secret cadre bent on ruling the entire world and all human thought.
Categories: Features, Film, Other Worlds, Reviews
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