When Fruitvale Station hit theaters in 2013, it was the mark of a major new talent. Director Ryan Coogler, at the time not yet 30, went on to make Creed, a righteous revamping of the Rocky films, and then moved into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), directing two Black Panther films. The first was well received and remains the only MCU film to be nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award, but though it touches on Coogler's recurring themes of generational tension and black identity it still, in retrospect, feels like a work-for-hire product, just another superhero movie with clunky special effects and a palette that looks a little too much like television. The sequel, which was hastily rewritten after the tragic death of star Chadwick Boseman, wasn't even that. It was a muddled, overlong, franchise-extending mess—less a movie on its own terms than an extended advertisement for future Marvel projects. It was an apt metaphor for Coogler's own career, which had been sidelined for years by Hollywood's biggest franchise.
Sinners, Coogler's latest, is a movie on his own terms. It's a vampire movie at heart, with hefty nods to From Dusk Till Dawn in particular, but it's also a bloody Southern Gothic with elements of the early George Romero zombie films, a lament about the loss and legacy of black art, and even, at times, a sort of musical. It's bold, distinctive, and uneven but often excellent—a new take on the vampire movie that, well, doesn't suck.
Sinners is set in 1930s Mississippi, as twin brothers Smoke and Stack, both played by Coogler's regular collaborator Michael B. Jordan, arrive in a sharecropping town and set up a juke joint in a derelict factory. They purchase the property from a local Ku Klux Klan leader, warning him to stay off their turf, and then tour the town, picking up talent to help staff their operation. There's a doorman, a cook, an immigrant couple to help paint the signs and tend the bar, and even a drunken blues man played by Delroy Lindo, who is always a welcome presence on screen. The brothers also bring along their cousin, Sammie, a soulful young man with a fancy-looking guitar and a deep voice.
