SINNERS. Do Vampires Feel the Blues? [REVIEW]

Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan are a well-matched pair. The director and actor have already worked together on eight productions, including the popular Creed and Black Panther, which turned both of them into major stars. Coogler clearly enjoys working with Jordan so much that in his latest film he decided to double him up, casting him in the roles of twin gangster brothers. Perhaps doubling his favorite actor served as a kind of safety net for Coogler, as Sinners is his first project in over a decade that’s not set in the Marvel universe or a continuation of a previously established story. That doesn’t mean, however, that the director has abandoned his inclination for creating entertaining, visually striking cinema that explores Black identity.

After his contemporary-futuristic journeys through Wakanda, Coogler now heads into the past—to the 1930s and the atmosphere of the Western. Jordan plays the twins Stack and Smoke, who return to their hometown in Mississippi after years of building a notorious reputation in Chicago’s underworld. From the mythologized, tolerant, and opportunity-filled North, the brothers aim to do something no one has done before in the racially hostile South—open a blues club for the Black community to inject some joy into their lives and, hopefully, make a bit of money. Helping them in this endeavor is Sammy, their musically talented cousin, who despite his pastor father’s warnings grabs his guitar and joins the twins at their newly purchased venue to kick off the grand opening party.

Coogler spins an adventurous tale, painting a vivid portrait of the American South during the Great Depression—a world of cotton plantations, inequality, and blues born from the hardships of Black laborers. Though slavery is gone, Jim Crow laws thrive, and the specter of the Ku Klux Klan lurks just behind the doors of many white households. In this world, Smoke and Stack symbolize upward mobility—and its price. Scarred by war, gangster violence, and the ruthless underworld, they have an ambitious and defiant plan, and the respect they command is laced with both admiration and fear. Jordan shines in the dual role, gracefully portraying the tougher, more stoic Smoke and the cockier, smooth-talking Stack. Alongside a well-chosen and well-balanced supporting cast (including Delroy Lindo, Li Jun Li, Wunmi Mosaku, Omar Benson Miller, and Hailee Steinfeld), and newcomer Miles Caton as Sammy, they form a strong ensemble that drives the brotherly-gangster drama.

But Sinners isn’t your typical Western aligned with Black historical cinema. Coogler delivers a genre twist that sets his film apart and, in some ways, turns it on its head. Taking place over a single day—the day the brothers open their club—the plot suddenly introduces vampires, forcing the characters to face an unexpected threat. It turns out Sammy possesses the powers of legendary minstrels, whose music transcends the material world but at the cost of attracting dark forces. Thus begins an uneven battle to survive the night against bloodthirsty creatures who turn victims into their growing army.

Although the first vampires to appear in Sinners are white (in fact, the first one is hunted by Native Americans), Coogler doesn’t try to craft overt racial metaphors around blood-drinking. For him, the monsters belong more to the realm of Southern mysticism, which heavily envelops the film’s narrative. In doing so, he attempts to merge African magic, African American blues, and Southern racial tensions into a unique hybrid of Western and Southern Gothic. The latter seems to offer Coogler an alternative to grim historical narratives—extracting the uncanny and the ambiguous from harsh reality, which often escapes strictly realist genre storytelling. It’s a compelling approach that helps Sinners avoid many of the clichés of race-focused cinema.

At the same time, Coogler firmly aligns himself with the trend of revisiting American history from a Black perspective. It’s clear that before making Sinners, he spent time watching Django Unchained and From Dusk Till Dawn, and Tarantino’s influence is palpable in the final product. Not just because the plot twist or some of the staging seems lifted straight from those films. Like Tarantino, Coogler appears to want to rewrite the mythology of the American South to include the experiences and cultural context of its Black inhabitants. In this sense, Sinners is an ambitious film, even while remaining conventionally entertaining. It tackles big themes, features spectacularly staged scenes (including a few admittedly unnecessary master shots), and offers a genre spectacle that strives to become a manifesto of Black America’s soul.

However, Coogler’s ambitions are, to some extent, undermined by his own filmmaking habits. It’s evident that he’s absorbed the Marvel style, which burdens him in both the Western and horror aspects. The first act, structured like a superhero movie team-gathering sequence, features a lot of unsubtle and somewhat unnecessary exposition, only dressed in period clothing (though instead of superpowers, these heroes “feel the blues”). In the vampire-fighting part, the film suffers from overlong monologues, dialogue-heavy pacing, and sluggish action sequences interrupted by last-minute saviors who pop out of nowhere. Not to mention the typical Marvel-style quips, which feel as out of place here as church organs in a blues bar. Whether it’s due to ambition or years of studio conditioning at Disney, Coogler sometimes prioritizes grandeur over action flow and coherence—making Sinners a bit exhausting, stretched out, and certainly a film that could benefit from a tighter runtime.

Will Sinners become a modern classic and, as the creators hope, enter the canon as a landmark of Black cinema? Hard to say. It’s definitely a film that’s difficult to evaluate unambiguously. On one hand, it’s a bold attempt to break free from genre boxes and formulas, to create something original and exciting without needing a hundred thousand references, which currently make up about 90% of franchise blockbusters. On the other hand, Sinners shows how deeply comic book-style filmmaking has infiltrated cinema, shaping even unrelated genres. Coogler made an interesting film, one that stands out in many ways from other blockbusters, but it’s also a movie that doesn’t quite come together—strained by an internal overload of styles and tropes. Still, it proves that he’s a director eager to experiment—hopefully, he’ll get more chances to do so, far away from the Marvel mold.