By Brian Susbielles

In the 1930s, in Mississippi, there was a blues guitar player named Robert Johnson. Guitarists like Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, and Bob Dylan cited Johnson as a major influence decades after his death, as Johnson did not get any recognition until long after his untimely passing at age 27. The story of Johnson isn’t well documented, so several legends about him have been told, such as Johnson selling his soul to the devil at a crossroads to become a great guitar player. In return for making the blues music that would become world-renowned, Johnson would die young, apparently of alcohol poisoning. It’s a tale mixing Delta blues with the Southern Gothic voodoo that is still studied today, and maybe Ryan Coogler was influenced by this in creating his own Southern horror tale.

Set over a day, in the heart of Mississippi in 1932, twin brothers Elijah and Elias, better known as Smoke and Stack (Michael B. Jordan), return from Chicago after a seven-year absence. They buy a mill from a White man to start a juke joint, inviting friends and former lovers to have a good time. Newcomer Miles Canton plays Sammie, the son of a preacher, and is a guitar player despite being warned by his father to not follow this openness of sin with drinking and hoochie calling through music. Smoke and Stack brings the attention of all the Black townsfolk after a lengthy week’s worth of cotton picking, where everyone can have a good time away from Jim Crow’s brutality. This includes local musician Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo), a town belle (Jayme Lawson), and Stack’s White ex-lover, Mary (Hailee Steinfeld). 

Entering nighttime, the juke joint comes alive with the incredible lineage of music coming from Blues merging in one amazing sequence – rock, R & B, and hip-hop – giving ode to the source of today’s music. However, it is also a perfect place for the devil to come out and bring some more souls into his pocket when White outsider Remmick (Jack O’Connell) and two of his fellow travellers seek to play in the juke joint under the guise of love, equality, and “heaven on Earth.” Being rejected by Smoke and Stack as they don’t trust Whites coming in causing trouble, the threesome await outside for the right opportunity to move in. 

The raging fire that follows is Coogler’s accelerant with good bloody action and traditional horror seeped in the Deep South. In IMAX, it shows with Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s striking cinematography and Ludwig Göransson’s genre-mixing score as the blood-letting pours out and the evil that lives right outside the juke joint’s door. The first act takes its time to set it all up before going headfirst with the second act, with lively music and the sudden turn into the fangs of an evil that isn’t what you would read in such Southern horror stories. Sprinkled dialogue with seductively funny moments that shatter the clean Southern look carries those past horrors of slavery, injustice, and what the ancestors told everyone when it comes to music. It both heals and brings the scent of wickedness.

Sinners is an original, full-throated gory drama that lives up to the highest notes of a Blues song about jilted lovers and the devil at the crossroads. It raises the intensity and forces us to walk through the fires of Hell that have been warned thanks to Coogler’s expansive vision in his script and direction. It’s so immersive watching it on the IMAX screen, and do try to see it on IMAX, and catch the spirit of the South from a distinct time. What Coogler, Jordan, and company do with this bold story is an incredible achievement and a real fun time looking in the face of the devil and soul-stealing ways. 

4 ½ stars

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