'SINNERS' IS PRO-DEI POP CULTURE

Marketed as a horror/action flick, Ryan Coogler's film loves the blues

I’ve read rave reviews of Ryan Coogler’s film ‘Sinners’ for several months but, after seeing it this weekend, I realized a few crucial elements have been missing from the discussion.

(If you haven’t seen the film this essay is full of spoilers, so stop here.)

BLUES GIANT HOWLIN’ WOLF

Number one, and most important, is that ‘Sinners’ is as much a musical as the horror/action hybrid its marketing suggests. The film opens at a Clarksdale, Mississippi church in 1932 that’s presided over by a preacher played by Saul Williams, the activist, spoken word poet and recording artist with creative roots in the Brooklyn Boheme of Fort Greene in the ‘90s. Hiring Saul for a part that any number of capable black character actors could play is a tip of the hat to those who know Saul’s musical pedigree. A new multi-voice version of the Howlin’ Wolf’s classic “Wang Dang Doodle” plays over a scene where one of the two twin brothers Michael B. Jordan portrays (more on that later) enters Clarksdale. Irish jigs, songs essential to the foundations of country music as well as country blues, are showcased in many scenes. Guitarist Buddy Guy, eighty-eight and still jammin’, appears in the film. Guy is a direct connection to the majestic magic of the Delta blues. The film’s lead characters are named Smoke and Stack, which will remind blues fans of another Wolf standard, “Smokestack Lightning.” So Coogler has tricked a whole nation of movie goers into seeing a celebration America’s deepest, darkest and most enduring creation.

MICHALE B. JORDAN AS SMOKE AND STACK IN ‘SINNERS’

The high point of ‘Sinners’ isn’t any of any of the well publicized vampire plot nonsense, but a surreal journey through black music history that goes backwards to Africa and forward to the rock and hip hop future. With echoes of Spike Lee, Baz Luhrmann, and Outkast’s movie ‘Idelwild,’ Coogler plunders the roots of American music and breaks the film’s historical context in a spectacle of sound and motion. Remember the phrase “Afro-Asiactic” which was once often cited in hip hop rhymes? This scene embraces that due to the presence of Chinese merchants at the juke joint party. ‘Sinners’ is the first pro-DEI epic of the Trump Two era.

I love that Coogler has the balls to leverage the success of ‘Creed’ and ‘Black Panther’ to sell a blues celebration as vampire movie that feels like a high end blaxploitation movie — what if ‘Blacula’ was done on a $90 million budget? My major problem with the film both was and wasn’t Michael B. Jordan’s performance. As the two brothers Smoke and Stack, Jordan has movie star charisma, and is believeable as a soldier, gangster and race man. I just that couldn’t tell the two brothers apart. One loved a black woman. One loved a mixed woman. In those scenes the two characters were somewhat different, but in interactions with others Smoke and Stack were too interchangeable.

That said, I enjoyed ‘Sinners’ and am excited that Coogler has filled multiplexs around the globe with the twang, poetry and passion of the music at the core of our national identity, an identity impossible to erase, a history lesson that can’t be banned. Can’t wait to hear the White House review.