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Join UsStar Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton, Wunmi Mosaku, Jack O’Connell, and Delroy Lindo.
Director: Ryan Coogler
What’s Good: Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s cinematography is genuinely excellent, as is Ludwig Göransson’s score, which will remain super memorable.
What’s Bad: The writing tries and fails to be deep with racial and social conventions, and the structure and pacing are truly defective. The ending fades just too fast.
Loo Break: You can go to the loo anywhere in the first act, and you won’t be missing much as scenes draw out to the limit.
Watch or Not?: Watch only if you are a fan of the actors or the director, as the film could have been so much better.
Language: English (with subtitles).
Available On: Theatrical release
Runtime: 138 Minutes
User Rating:
Ryan Coogler began as one of the most promising young directors in recent memory thanks to having some of the strongest first two films you can have in your career, the indie drama Fruitvale Station, and, of course, the nostalgia trip that was Creed. From there, Coogler jumped into the Disney machine, directing two Black Panther films, and with Sinners, the director tries to return to his roots, penning an original story. Still, the messiness of Wakanda Forever follows him here, and it hurts the film quite a bit.
Sinners Movie Review: Script Analysis
From the get-go, Sinners allows its lack of cohesiveness to show with an intro that, while fantastic in its visuals, feels completely disconnected from the rest of the film. It is pretty jarring, but this could be a fluke. Coogler would combine all the elements and create something that would feel cohesive, impactful, and resonant. Still, sadly, that wasn’t the case, as the rest of the film followed the vibe of the opening section, making the film feel like three different movies stitched together with tape.
You see, Sinners has a sort of identity crisis at its core, and the film doesn’t have a clear vision of what it wants to be; at times it is a pretty engaging drama set in the deep south, and then it goes into vampire gore territory, and then into social commentary. Still, all these pieces never meet, and the dialogue used to serve as connective tissue feels pretty on the nose, transforming the film into something with no layers to go deep into; what you see is what you get.
The structure is also a big problem because the film feels quite overlong. The first and second acts go on forever, and then a third act fades away, as if Coogler and his team were reminded that they needed to finish the film soon. What is more alarming is that while the characters are set up, they go nowhere, with their stories never reaching a dramatic climax or anything of the sort; they just end. The one character that follows through is the most uninteresting of the bunch.
It is strange that while Coogler draws from many sources of influence, including ancient history, mythology, and most recent events, such as the Jim Crow era, all these elements stay in the background, never being discussed or dealt with by the characters in any meaningful way. It is all fluff, and alongside characters that stay as concepts from beginning to end, it is all quite disappointing from a writing standpoint.
Sinners Movie Review: Star Performance
Michael B. Jordan is one talented actor; he has been killing every role since he participated in The Wire, and here is no exception. The actor goes all in on a dual performance that asks him to play twins, who quickly enough are drawn as having very different personalities. Sadly, the material goes nowhere with the characters, and no arc or transformation is going on; we don’t learn more about them either, so the incredible performance feels wasted on a pair of forgettable characters.
The same goes for the rest of the cast. Steinfeld, for example, is doing something we have never seen her do, and she is fantastic at it. O’Connell is sometimes menacing and charming, while Lindo’s presence is felt every time he shows up. If only the screenplay had met the actors at their level, this film could have been excellent, but it isn’t. All the actors do their best, which can be easily felt and seen on the screen.
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Sinners Movie Review: Direction, Music
The writing might be a complete and disappointing mess. Still, Coogler hasn’t lost his touch when directing powerful scenes visually, including a fantastic party scene in the middle of the film that feels quite kinetic. Coogler understands how powerful camera movement and the proper blocking can be to a scene, and here, he and his team do their best. However, because the last act fades so fast, his action directing feels a bit clunky here, and I certainly missed his Creed period, where he was way more inspired in that sense.
Music is a big part of the film, and many concepts introduced in it are directly tied to it. However, as with everything, these elements are never explored, just mentioned. Something is interesting here to work with, but it just misses the mark. All the music performances are fantastic, so at least there is that.
Sinners Movie Review: The Last Word
Sinners feel like many ideas are put on paper, but they never actually melt together into one big idea that still has enough craft to make each of them stand out as a part of a whole. This is ironic because the idea is presented in the film as something bad, and the film just does that and proves that it is exactly something bad that doesn’t work well.
This will do well in theaters, but, at least for me, this is not the Ryan Coogler that made me a fan back in the day.
Sinners Trailer
Sinners released on 18 April, 2025.
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