Sinners blindsided me — 9 guitar strings out of 10
I walked into Sinners knowing exactly one thing: Michael B. Jordan was in it, and I'll watch about anything he's in. No trailer, no synopsis, no idea what I was sitting down for. Going in that blind is a gamble, and this is the rare time the gamble paid off twice over.
From the setup I thought I had it pegged. 1932, the Mississippi Delta, Jim Crow South, two brothers come back home. I figured I knew this movie. Deep South, good men, the Klan on the horizon, somebody makes a stand. The kind of story you've seen the shape of before.
I was half right. The other half I did not see coming, and I'm not going to be the one who spoils it for you.
#The world feels lived-in before anything else happens
What sells the whole thing is that the place is real before the plot ever gets going. The dust, the heat, the music, the weight of when and where these people are living. The actors aren't performing 1932, they're just in it. I believed the town and the people in it completely, which matters more than it sounds, because the movie is about to ask you to believe some things you wouldn't sign up for cold. You go along with it because the ground under it is solid.
Michael B. Jordan is doing a lot here, more than I'll spell out, and he carries every bit of it. The man earns the ticket on his own.
#The music is the spine
This is where the guitar-strings rating comes from. The blues isn't background in this movie, it's the bloodstream. There's a thread running through the whole thing where the music is doing real work in the story, not just setting a mood. By the end I understood why it had to be built around that and not anything else. It's the kind of choice that seems obvious only after somebody pulls it off.
#The turn
Here's all I'll say about the part that got me. I came in braced for one kind of movie and somewhere in the middle the floor opened up and it became something else, while somehow still being the first thing too. The half I guessed going in is real and it lands hard. The half I didn't is the reason I'm telling people to see it without reading a thing first. Both halves are in the same movie and it doesn't fumble the handoff, which is the part that shouldn't work and absolutely does.
If you've already had it spoiled for you, you've still got a good movie waiting. If you haven't, protect that. Watch it before the internet gets to you.
#The verdict
Nine guitar strings out of 10. I hold a 10 back for the handful that I'll be chewing on for years, and this is right at the door, just shy. It's the best kind of surprise, the one that's actually good and not just shocking for the sake of it. Go in blind like I did if you possibly can.