Quick Synopsis: From Dusk Till Dawn, but as a 30’s gangster movie with a black cast.
I went into this after seeing the trailer, but forgot what the trailer was like. I saw a post on Facebook saying it was a vampire horror movie. For about 40 minutes, I wondered if I had seen a post about a different movie. It wasn’t a horror movie, it wasn’t a vampire movie, it was a gangster flick about two brothers using money stolen from Chicago mobs to start up a bar. It had interesting character work, a lot of subtle references to the brothers’ past misdeeds, and how they acquired the money. It asked a lot of questions that the audience will want answered; the main one being what led to the opening scene, where Sammie (played by Miles Caton in his screen debut) stumbles into his father’s church, battered and bloody, desperate for comfort, only to see his father use him as an example in a sermon. Just when I began to doubt my own memory, the vampires made their first appearance. It’s a great genre switch, reminded me of From Dusk Till Dawn, only with less scenes of the writer sucking on an actresses toes to fulfil their own fetish.
I think I preferred this to Dusk; it’s much slower, and that glacial pace will be divisive, putting off a lot of people. It’s also not as bloody, but it does do something that the aforementioned Dawn never manages; it wowed me. There’s a scene in Sinners where Sammie plays his song at the bar. The song is so powerful that it connects across space and time, with spirits of the past and future joining in; electric guitars played Hendrix style join in with music from hundreds of years ago, and dances from different cultures, showing how music connects everybody. I’ve already written its nomination for best scene in the end-of-year awards. From a storytelling perspective, from a technical perspective (it’s a LOOOONG mostly unbroken shot), from a musical perspective, it’s all brilliant. I hate people who talk at the cinema, but I couldn’t help let out a gasp of “that was fucking cinema” when I saw it. I’m so glad it’s not just me. I’ve seen a lot of people online mention how much they loved that moment, and if you see it, it’s easy to see why. The mass sing-along to “Rocky Road Of Dublin” (which I always assumed Dropkick Murphys wrote, obviously not) is a few steps below it in terms of quality, but is just as powerful, and MUCH more terrifying.
Scenes like that, which show not only the power of music, but also the shared experiences between black and Irish immigrants (albeit, at two VASTLY different levels for most of American history) show just how smart Sinners is. The characters are just as smart. When a friend-turned-vampire starts asking for permission to enter the bar, the characters question why they suddenly need to ask permission. When they’re not sure who’s been bitten, they gather round and each eat a clove of garlic (in a scene very reminiscent of The Thing). The characters don’t die due to their own stupidity; they die because they’re overpowered, overmanned, and don’t know everything. Except for the klan members at the end, they die because they realised their blood can help the grass grow, and by dying they can actually provide some use for once in their pathetic fucking lives. I know, I’m anti-KKK, so controversial.
Sinners is not a perfect movie, but you have to be very picky to find those faults. It’s probably the best film I’ve seen this year. It’s not my favourite, but it is undoubtedly the most impressive, and the one closest to perfection. Cooglar is fantastic and cannot receive enough praise for the work he’s done, not just here, but throughout his whole career. Long may it continue.
the ethics of justice with the brash Kurt Russel, or stopping everyone from shooting each other. Walton Goggins on the other hand is just having a blast as the fun loving, dorky, hill-billy-esque former confederate, who is so country and western he says things like, “I’ll be double dog dammed”, and you can’t help but smile at his every slapstick manoeuvre. He and Roth are like the two sides to the same chocolate and cheese coin. Goggin’s character also has the best (and I think only) arc in the film.
But the cabin is large and surprisingly complex, with each corner, from the bar to the fireplace, becoming their own country and safe ground for the characters. What I’m saying I guess is for a film predominantly set in one room, it still feels large and epic.
talk about it. It’s bloody, it’s fun, its ambiguous, yet somehow also satisfying enough, as those you want to see get it do (for the most part) and those you want to see make good also do (for the most part), without resorting to anything overly happy….Though the more I think about it the more it seems like a re-tread of Reservoir Dogs. Still for a film that gets so messy in every way, it has strong closing minutes.
Demián Bichir’s character’s biggest trait is that he’s Mexican…oh and he played piano in that one scene. For a film this long and boasting an apparently hateful 8 (even though theres like ten of them really), its inexcusable that almost half the cast are uninteresting 
underdeveloped characters, there just to pad out the length like tissue in a bra.
But it gets so bogged down with detours, homage, pointless scenes, sucking it’s own dick, and having a bullshit twist it never really gets there. And it could have been great if it did! A Tarantino whodunit, that just sounds amazing. With the same set of
Troubled Productions 