The beginning of Sinners sets the scene for the Jim Crow South after World War I. Cotton fields are a reminder of the hierarchy of the South, with black people at the lower end of the ladder as sharecroppers. This was a time when black and white people shopped on different sides of the streets. Everything in this film, from the music to the set design to the performances of the talented cast, portrays the history in this period exceptionally accurately.
Twin brothers Elias and Elijah Moore, also known as the Smoke Stack twins, were working for Al Capone in Chicago after fighting in WWI. This film very uniquely casts Michael B. Jordan as both twins. The filmmaker Ryan Coogler employed a split-screen approach, where Jordan filmed the scene twice, once as each twin. For scenes involving significant physical interaction between the twins, the director utilized a new harness they had developed, called the Halo Rig. The halo rig is a ring of 10-12 cameras that create a halo shape around the actor’s head to capture not only their facial features but also their head performance and paste it onto the stunt double.
Smoke and Stack bring their loot, money stolen from the gangs of Chicago, and purchase an old mill from a white man they suspect is a Ku Klux Klan member. They aim to transform the mill into a community juke joint. The other main character, Sammie, played expertly by newcomer Miles Canton, is renowned for his musical talent and is recruited by his cousins to play blues in the joint. Music is the heart of this film.
The opening scene of the movie includes a backstory of the Griot culture. The people in this culture are not only musicians but also storytellers of their culture’s history and future. This is known to bring joy to people, but also attracts evil. This evil is what Sammie’s father warns him about before he leaves the church with his cousins.
On the opening night of the juke joint, a fever dream sequence unfolds as Sammie connects the past of African musicians, modern rock and hip-hop. Sammie can conjure these traditions of black music from across time, a common thread of the Black musical culture that figuratively burns the Juke joint house down. This is a pivotal moment in the movie that introduces the traditions of African supernaturalism into the story. Remmick, played ghoulishly by Jack O’Connell, and his newly turned vampires hear the music and try to enter the juke joint. Since they are vampires, they need to be invited in. They complement Smoke and Stack and say they “stand for equality.” Smoke is suspicious, so they are turned away.
Mary, played beautifully by Hailee Steinfeld (the only white passing woman in the joint), feels empathetic and follows the vampires to try and see if they have money to spend that Smoke and Stack need to keep their juke joint alive. Mary realizes too late, and she is turned by the vampires. She has to ask to be let back into the juke joint, as she is now a vampire. The battle for the soul of the juke joint, and the tradition of music begins, and the horror film transition begins in earnest at this point.
Mary turns Stack, and Smoke shoots Mary, who runs away into the night. Annie, Stack’s love interest, played convincingly by Wunmi Mosaku, sees the danger because she understands the supernatural things that are going on – she sees those turned are “hanks”, or evil spirits.
Coogler utilizes the horror film genre, with its fantastical and supernatural elements, to tell the story of Black traditions in culture and music during the Jim Crow South. He tells the tale of the appropriation of Black music and culture by “vampires”. One by one, the Black citizens are turned, forced to assimilate away from their traditions while singing and dancing to Irish music played outside the juke joint. Although the fight scene is gory and full of violence, the action is compelling and meant to entertain; it is a horror film, after all.
Smoke and Sammie are left standing at the end, having survived the slaughterhouse. In a final act to protect Sammie and the music within him that holds the Black traditions that transcend time, Smoke sacrifices himself by killing the Klan members who would try and hunt them all down. At the end of the movie, as the credits roll, we see Sammie in modern times playing the blues, keeping the Black musical traditions alive and well. After the show, he’s paid a visit by Stack and Mary, decked out in a modern hip-hop style and still vampires looking as young as ever. They offer Sammie immortality, but he turns them down; he has already achieved that with his music.
