If “A Minecraft Movie” is the commercial hit that 2025 needed, then “Sinners” is the creative hit it needed. Writer/director Ryan Coogler has delivered a film that starts off as a compelling-enough 1930’s period piece before wildly shifting into supernatural territory. But the later developments don’t devalue the efforts made in the setup, they simply put the well-established characters on a path they didn’t anticipate. Speaking of anticipation, I’m going to be vague with story developments so readers can go into this movie anticipating little more than an unspecified good time.
Frequent Coogler collaborator Michael B. Jordan stars twins Smoke and Stack, a pair of wannabe gangsters returning to their hometown in Mississippi after limited success in Chicago. They purchase an old sawmill and immediately set about turning it into a nightclub. They get help from old acquaintances, like Smoke’s occultist ex-wife Annie (Wunmi Mosaku) to cook and wife-pleasing field worker Cornbread (Omar Benson Miller) to work security. Entertainment in the club is important too, which is why they recruit lushy pianist Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) and their timid cousin Sammie (Miles Caton) to play guitar. Sammie’s preacher father warns him that he’ll lose his soul at the club,…
