सिनर्स

I love it when movies mix different genres and create a fresh spin on old themes. In this case however the different elements didn't mix well in my opinion: I would describe sinners as a mix between period gangster drama, musical and trashy B-movie horror. This sounds super exciting on paper, but in reality it threw me off completely. I feel like the movie tries to do everything at the same time but doesn't deliver on many of those aspects: It wants to hit the viewer on an emotional level but left me personally completely cold - I didn't care who died or who lived; The movie kinda wants to be scary but the "enemies" in the film feel like a complete joke from the first scene they are shown and it takes away all the tension; It wants to be action-packed and explosive, but the fight scenes are kinda boring and left me wanting to move on to more serious scenes again, even though those serious scenes are kind of a slow burn; The film wants to be funny and even though it made me chuckle a bit it never really took it far enough to justify sacrificing the big threat in the film for laughs.

In conclusion: This movie is too boring and slow to be an entertaining action-comedy and doesn't take the humor and fight scenes far enough to really have an impact. At the same time this movie is far too ridiculous to be a serious scary and emotional movie that reaches you on any kind of emotional level.

I would have liked it, if they would have sacrificed the humor for building a serious threat that feels genuinely scary and terrifying. The cinematography, costumes and music are fantastic but this is just not enough for me to make it a good film, when the story is not hitting. There are single parts of the movie that I absolutely loved and I would have really appreciated those scenes as standalone music videos, but it just doesn't mix well with the rest in my personal opinion.

In addition to my previous criticisms I spotted some typical clichés in the dialogue writing that made me roll my eyes and there were some moments where I found it extremely hard to believe that certain characters survived. I could go in to detail here but I want to keep my review vague to avoid spoilers.

To me watching this movie felt a bit like eating chocolate on a burger - Both elements are nice by themselves but together they don't make for a nice meal.

I will need to watch this again with subtitles. Being a native English speaker, I didn't understand half of the mumbled dialogue in the first hour and a half, but it's possible that this wouldn't have mattered anyway, since this portion of the film seemed to bear very little relation to the rest of the movie. Maybe there was some grain of information buried in the unintelligible two-thirds of the movie to make the last part somehow make sense? To me, it was like someone set out to make a period drama, then with half an hour of runtime left, changed their mind and decided to make it a horror movie instead.

It feels like The Sinners was directed by two different Cooglers-one responsible for the first half, and another for the second. If I had to rate them separately: the first half is a solid 8, the second a disappointing 4.

The film starts off brilliantly. Set in the Deep South during the 1930s, it plunges us into a world of chain gangs, overt racism, and raw human struggle-all wrapped in the soul of music. The characters are distinctive and memorable, the performances are top-notch, and the world-building is rich and atmospheric. It's a western, a drama, and a musical all at once, and somehow it works. For a while.

Then comes the second half.

This is where things fall apart. The pivot to horror-specifically vampires-feels abrupt and half-hearted. There's barely a story holding it together, and the horror/action sequences barely last 10-15 minutes. They lack any real suspense or memorable set pieces. The execution feels rushed and undercooked, especially after such a powerful setup.

The final 5-7 minutes attempt a bold anti-Klan message, and it's likely this moment of violence and symbolism that won over many critics. But for me, it was too little, too late.

What's most frustrating is the wasted potential. This could've been a truly unique vampire film-rooted in history, rich in theme, driven by character and song. Instead, it leaves you wondering what could've been if the second half had lived up to the promise of the first.

A film that adds nothing from an artistic and cinematographic point of view.

First part of a deadly boredom, second based on clichés, derivative and poorly used narrative elements.

A less than mediocre blockbuster.

Yet another case of a film exalted by obsolete criticism and an audience poorly educated to the true refinement of the seventh art.

The fact that in May it's considered the best film of the year would make one believe in a mass hallucination but unfortunately the acclaim and success it has had is only the mirror of the times: a lack of truly worthy creativity and an increasingly poor and faded appreciation index.

You came in expecting fangs, stakes, blood, smoking crucifixes and girls screaming. You imagined an arty version of Blade, with Michael B. Jordan staking vampires between sets of push-ups.

Well, guess what, buddy? Surprise: you walked into a Ryan Coogler film that serves you blues, poetry, and Black pain like a sacred offering.

The film plays like The Legend of 1900 remixed by Robert Johnson mid-satanic pact. The horror? It's a metaphor. The monsters? Symbols. And you, the viewer? A willing victim who realizes twenty minutes in that you're not watching a slasher... you're deep in a mystical odyssey shot like a fever dream on opium.

Twins. One actor. Zero missteps. No crappy green screen, no clunky split-screen from The Parent Trap. Nah-this is clean, surgical, fluid. You'd swear the guy was cloned in a cave by a Shaolin monk.

And the wildest part? He plays both brothers with completely different energies. One radiates light, the other broods darkness, and both exude elegance and pain in equal measure. This isn't acting-it's black magic. At this level, it's no longer performance-it's full-blown demonic possession captured in 4K.

Want originality? You got it. No looped rap tracks like in 99% of U. S. films about Black characters. Here, it's the blues. The real stuff. The kind that comes from guts, chains, cotton fields, and dust. And believe me-it cuts deeper than a Slash guitar solo strung with prison wire.

Every note haunts you. Every chord summons ghosts. The music is a doorway between worlds, a call to the Old Ones, a ritual that raises goosebumps. Ryan Coogler delivers a film where the score isn't just background-it's a damn hex. You don't listen-you endure it. And you want more.

There's one scene. Just one. But my God. Straight into the cinematic hall of fame.

The party scene.

At once orgiastic, sacred, primal and cosmic. It's Eyes Wide Shut in the bayou. There's voodoo, groove, bodies melting together, lurking entities, and a one-take shot that knocks the wind out of you like three shots of mezcal and a bad peyote trip.

It's not just well-made-it's divine. Filmed from the gut, edited with fire and silence, it grabs your stomach and wrings out your spine. The kind of scene that makes you believe God listens to the blues in a sweaty Louisiana basement.

We love Coogler. But someone needs to tell him: bro, your intro plays like an episode of Murder, She Wrote. You wanna build atmosphere? Fine. But don't make us wait an hour with "Twins Return to the Village and Do Mystical Gardening."

It drags. It stretches. You wait for the film to kick in like you're waiting for meaningful reform in France. Meanwhile, flashbacks hit every ten minutes, reminding you that pain is apparently a damn art form.

It's noble, it's deep-but man, it's long. This needed some trimming, less Terrence Malick meditation, and a bit more fang in this occult fable.

You came for chills, you got a full-on spiritual initiation drilled into your spinal cord.

Sinners promises the Devil, delivers the blues, and implants visions in your mind. It's slow to start, yeah.

But when it hits... it hits like a sermon from Hell.

It's not a slap. It's an incantation. A trance. A film that doesn't scare you-but follows you into your dreams like a damned old bluesman whispering in your ear with B. B. King's voice and the stare of a demon.

And that's when you get it: When you dance with the Devil long enough... It's not him coming to you- It's you who opens the door.