Sinners - Well Done Period Horror Film from Ryan Coogler With Amazing Performance by Michael B. Jordan

For the second of our movie marathon day, my wife and I chose to see this horror film that was just released on Wednesday. We were at first a bit doubtful if it was going to be supernatural kind which we normally would avoid, but it was a bit hard to tell cause the synopsis and trailer gave very little info. Nevertheless we still gave it a try. All right then, let us get right on it.

Brief Story Line

Set in the year 1932, twin brothers of Smoke the more matured one and the playful Stack (Michael B. Jordan - Creed III, Kin etc) just returned to Mississippi after years in Chicago living as gangsters. They planned to open a juke joint where people could enjoy music, drinks and also gambled. In order to do so, they enlisted Preacherboy Sammie (Miles Caton) and Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo - Point Break 2015 version, The Harder They Fall etc) to play music at the joint. The twins also convinced Cornbread (Omar Benson Miller - CSI: MIami TV series, The Sorcerer's Apprentice etc) to be the doorman, Smoke's ex wife Annie (Wunmi Musaku - Loki TV series, His House etc) to cook and local couple Grace Chow (Li Jun Li - Babylon, The Exorcist TV series etc) with her husband Bo (Yao - The Last Bout TV series etc) to provide help.

During that night, things seemed to be working fine with people all around coming and enjoying the time, including the white girl Mary (Hailee Steinfeld - Hawkeye TV series, Pitch Perfect 3 etc) who used to be Stack's lover and Pearline (Jayme Lawson - The Penguin TV series, The Woman King etc) whom Sammie was interested in. But things gotten complicated when the mysterious Remmick (Jack O'Connell -  Money Monster, Godless mini series etc) and two other people insisted to join but were rejected by the twins as they looked suspicious. All hell broke lose when evil forces threatened the lives of everyone.

So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

As I said above, since we did not know the nature of horror in the movie, we were not sure if we were going to enjoy it. Apparently the horror was the kind that my wife and I liked, so we found ourselves to be enjoying the film. The early part of the movie seemed promising with horrifying images shown few times, but then it focused on the preparation of the juke joint which took a long while. Now such background story usually would make a film lost its momentum. However this one somehow did not make it really boring. I think it was due to the the engaging characters. Sure sometimes certain things took longer than I hoped for, but in general they were still acceptable for me.

One thing that both of us admired was the acting of Michael B. Jordan who was able to portray two different people so convincingly. We could distinguish Smoke and Stack easily despite they looked and sounded exactly the same. The other cast also performed their roles well like Miles Caton the R&B singer in his film debut and Delroy Lindo who provided some lighter moments with his remarks. In addition to the names I mentioned above, there were also appearances of Saul Williams (A Midsummer's Night Dream etc) as Sammie's father reverend Jedediah Moore, singers Lola Kirke (Mozart in the Jungle TV series etc) and Peter Dreimanis as Remmick's followers Joan & Bert, Dave Maldonado (Deepwater Horizon etc) as Hogwood, Blues singer Buddy Guy and few others. 

The film itself had a long duration of 137 minutes. More than the first half was providing background story of the characters. Apart from the very long singing performance that was pretty stylish and surely delight fans of such thing (but not exactly my favorite), the rest were OK for me. However, the action part was exciting. The intensity was strongly felt and the suspense was well built. I also liked the ending which was truly satisfying. Oh and there was a pretty long mid end credit scene that provided a nice closure plus brief post end credit scene. The film was really well received by critics and audiences with people praising the work of its director Ryan Coogler (Black Panther and its sequel, Creed etc) which I agreed.

One thing that surprised us though was the existence of several steamy scenes which were usually cut by Indonesian censorship body. Perhaps they are less restricted nowadays. Anyway this movie was rightly categorized for 17+ in Indonesia and amazingly there was no kids seeing it in the studio we saw this two days ago. Btw, it was quite funny that both films we saw on our marathon had similar theme of people trapped in one place and had to survive others who tried to capture & kill them, plus there were some racial elements as well.

Overall this was an entertaining movie for us. We liked the interesting story telling and the characters, plus the built up to the enjoyable second half. The horror was not the kind that would give me and my wife nightmares, but rather the type that provided opportunity for pretty awesome action. The performance of Michael B. Jordan was also a joy to see and he had proven himself once again to be a bankable male lead as I think this film would be a success in term of box office. So if you are looking for a horror movie set in the 1930s America with the attributes I mentioned above, then likely you would enjoy this like we did. However if you prefer the supernatural kind of horror or one that is filled with nonstop jump scares, then probably you would be less enjoying. The choice is yours.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars