Sinners

SINNERS (2025) 

Highly respected director Ryan Coogler (Black Panther, Creed) has teamed up with Michael B. Jordan for all five of his feature films, but with SINNERS, the dynamic duo may have finally made their Magnum Opus. 

The story follows twin brothers Smoke and Stack, who return home to the South after running shop with the mobs out in Chicago. After accumulating enough wealth through nefarious means, the brothers look to fulfill their dreams by buying out a plot of land to open up a jukebox spot for the locals. 

Everything goes better than expected until some uninvited and unwelcome guests look to leave their mark on the guests at the establishment, forcing the brothers to reflect on the reality of the life they’ve dreamed of and the nightmare they now find themselves in. 

SINNERS is an audacious vision that Ryan Coogler brings to the devil’s doorstep using a level of originality that we don’t get at the movies anymore. He brings two strong-willed southern men from America into a vampire-frenzied slaughterhouse with a world of unexplored lore for audiences to feast on.

There are marks of the real world traced all throughout this story, but the world-building around the foundation bleeds of uncharted cinematic territory in a way that feels bold, new, and refreshing. It will have audiences feeling like tourists, wide-eyed and curious, until they are forced to focus on what they’ve been blinded by: the music.

The score was composed by the great Ludwig Göransson, who, for comparative purposes, has become this generation's Hans Zimmer.

What he’s able to do with the score is as important as any performance or story point in this film.

Ludwig puts you into a full-on trance, so much so that you momentarily forget the severity of what’s happening and get caught up in the toe-tapping swing of things, until the music stops and you come back to your senses to realize how dire the situation has become. 

There’s a moment in the movie where the twin brothers Stack and Smoke warn their young cousin to “Jump on the work; don’t let the work jump on you,” but as an audience member, you fall guilty of getting swept up in the rhythm and blues that you forget to heed that very warning, so much so that the jump scares (there are plenty and done effortlessly well) will have even the most unshaken person shifting. 

A lot of that works because of the nonchalant way in which Coogler introduces us to this world and the people within it, and as someone who enjoys a good slow burn, the subtle build-up worked for me in ways I can also see not working for others. 

I will say, as much as I enjoyed this film, there’s a flavor of Southern hospitality and what one character describes as “Bayou Bullshit” that I’m not particularly into. 

That never took away from my personal enjoyment of the film, but as someone who prefers the Transylvania version of vampires over the New Orleans voodoo interpretation, there’s a cap on how much I’ll care about that part of the story. 

What I’m also not a fan of is when an actor plays two characters in a movie. The only time I’ve seen it done remotely well is when Lindsay Lohan did it back in 1998 for Parent Trap.

That being said, Michael B. Jordan absolutely nails both roles in what I’d consider to be the best performance of his career. I don’t know how they pulled this off, but the majority of the time it was like there were two different Michael B. Jordans in the same room, and it didn’t use camera work to hide the fact that there wasn’t, which was really impressive. 

Speaking of camera work, this looked absolutely gorgeous, and that’s because Coogler has integrity as a filmmaker and shot this on film. This is what movies have been missing lately: that texture only movies shot on film can truly possess.

Coogler is on another level with this, both as a director and as a writer, and as a viewer you feel like he hasn’t even scratched the surface of the potential in this world, which is the exciting part. 

“If you keep dancing with the devil, one day he’ll follow you home.” And if moviegoers are lucky, we’ll get the chance to dance again with a sequel. 

Enjoy!

7.8/10 🍿 🎥

Runtime: 2hrs17mins

Where: SINNERS is In Theatres April 18th, 2025.
Post-Credit Scenes: 2

SINNERS Review (2025) The Richmond Reviewer - April 17th, 2025.

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