Michael B. Jordan plays one of the twins, grabbing his cousin Sammie (Miles Caton) in an intense scene. Photograph: Warner Bros / Click to view the trailer.
American director Ryan Coogler has had better moments. Two of the first Black Panther films, in 2018 and 2022, were some of the finer flicks in the MCU, even if it’s questionable how much Coogler’s inluence shows in the final, Disney-backed, CGI-infused result.
People had seeminlgy been longing for another black hero since Adonis Creed of the first two Creeds (2015, 2018). The first Rocky reboot felt at the time like a five-star knockout, and it was all Coogler’s, Michael B. Jordan’s and Sylvester Stallone’s passion for original Rocky movies that shone on screen.
But by the third installment Stallone was gone … for the first time in nine films and 47 years, Rocky “I Didn’t Hear No Bell!” Balboa was not in the story, and the weird part was that it was never explained where the hell he was.
Later Stallone told The Hollywood Reporter about disagreeing with the sequel’s tone. “It was taken in a direction that is quite different than I would’ve taken it …. I like my heroes getting beat up, but I just don’t want them going into that dark space. I just feel people have enough darkness.”
As for Coogler, by the time of the second installment, even Coogler was gone (it was directed Steven Caple Jr.) only to return as a writer for Creed III.
After the two Black Panther joints, Coogler attempted to direct again, and the abysmal result is playing in cinemas now.
Sinners feels like two very bad movies stitched together.
Michael B. Jordan becomes the modern-day Jean Claude Van Damme without the split kicks but with split personalities in playing twin brothers, just like Van Damme did in 1991 in a better but different movie, Double Impact.
In Double Impact, one packs a punch, one packs a piece … and when thinking about it, it’s exactly the same setup as Sinners.
Sinners is set in 1932, in the Mississipi Delta, where the twin brothers, Smoke and Stack, return after working for the mob and serving in World War I.
Their goal: to establish a juke joint for the local Black community with all the goodies, including blues music, dancing, gambling and drinking.
Little did they know that when recruiting their cousin Sammie (Miles Caton) as a guitarist and singer alongside pianist Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo), they would be fighting for their lives against vampires!
The best part of the movie is Delroy Lindo’s dedicated performance as a hard-drinking pianist, with every pore oozing the blues.
Lindo, 72, is a class act with a powerful presence, who has appeared in 40 movies including Get Shorty (1995), Clockers (1995), The Cider House Rules and Gone in 60 Seconds (2000).
Lindo’s performance alone, though, can not save this lifeless mess, which blatantly tries to cater to fans of every movie genre—from comedy to action and from drama to supernatural horror—while missing the mark.
Big time.
‘Sinners’ is playing in cinemas now.
