Sinners

🏆90% My biggest regret of last year is not seeing this where it was meant to be seen: a theater. This is one of the deepest and most well written movies of the decade. Every character is so unique, and there’s lots of commentary and complex beauty throughout the entire story. Michael B Jordan convinces the audience he is two people, showcasing a wide range of relationships with multiple people through both characters he plays. He’s also a major badass as always. Steinfeld, Mosaku, and Lawson all work so well as romantic interests to our leads, each with their own amazing moments that add to the style of the film. Mosaku’s character adds to the horror, Lawson adds to the musicality and sensuality, and Steinfeld adds to the overall theme and viscousness of the film. O’Connell, while being very evil and terrifying, exemplifies the complex themes that apply to every character. He has moments that make the audience so sympathetic towards him, and his motivation only piles onto that. Caton and Lindo are simply forces of extreme entertainment. Lindo is hilarious and well-seasoned, and Caton yanks the audience’s attention with every performance he does. This films acting is nothing short of magnificent. The direction is also off the charts. Coogler crafts a wonderful story with a delicate blend of sins (obviously), love, music, culture, and lies. One thing I always forget about is how great the first act is. It sets up so many relationships and the dialogue introduces great lore and resolutions that happen later. Mary and Stack’s relationship is so interesting, the ending is very dark but at the same time, very sweet. They want each other, and they have to be dead to have that. It’s brutal but it’s beautiful. That plotline is brilliant, as well as Sammie’s. The camerawork is just amazing. The various aspect ratio changes, how the action is shot, and the colors, all of this makes the movie gorgeous to look at. I think my one and only flaw here is the vampire’s introduction. As someone who watched the trailers and heard about things from the movie beforehand, I knew this was a vampire movie. I know for a fact that if someone was watching this without any prior information, the vampire thing starts smack in the middle and comes out of kinda nowhere. It’s awesome, and lays out the purpose for the movie, but it kinda threw me off this time around. Overall, Sinners is exhibit A B and C to prove that good original movies still come out today. The acting is mindblowing, the direction is super fresh, and the story is really special and cool to break down. If Coogler ever makes a movie better than this, there’s no doubt it’ll be one of my favorite movies of all time. Shoutout to my guy Rylan for his review. A lot of these thoughts would not be in my brain if not for his amazing analysis of this movie. 🔙Bugonia 🔜Hamnet