I Saw Sinners: AMC Offering $7 Tuesday Matinees for Members (Free to Sign-Up!)
Call me Max Cherry, because I just got caught a midweek movie matinee.
Those of us who turned out to AMC Stony Brook 17 and AMC DINE-IN Huntington Square on Tuesday, May 20th, sure did feel like Oscar-nominated Robert Forster’s aforementioned character in Quentin Tarantino’s 1997 hangout crime ensemble, “Jackie Brown.”
Fitting, as—in many ways—“Sinners,” the feature presentation, melds two other QT joints: 1996’s vampire melee “From Dusk Till Dawn” and 2012’s revisionist western “Django Unchained.”
Having raked in over $320 million against a $90 budget, unheard of for all non-Tarantino filmmakers cranking out original intellectual property these days, the film does true damage in the best sense possible by way of director Ryan Coogler.
The Time Person of the Year runner-up once upon a time made an emphatic dent in the cinematic universe, and the culture at large with Marvel’s “Black Panther” films in 2018 and 2022.
Now, he has re-teamed with frequent collaborator Michael B. Jordan—who fronted Coogler’s directorial debut, 2013’s heartbreaking “Fruitvale Station” and “Rocky” reboot “Creed” in 2015.
Together, Coogler and Jordan tell the tale of twins Stack and Smoke Moore (both played by MBJ): a pair of prohibition-era Chicago bootleggers who return home to Mississippi to start a juke joint for their fellow black brethren.
However, they and old friends–like Omar Miller (“Ballers,” “8 Mile,” “Band Camp”) and “Edge of Seventeen” star turned Buffalo Bills QB Josh Allen’s fiancé Hailee Steinfeld….oh my—soon confront an adversary even more frightening than the period-protruding Ku Klux Klan.
So much so, “Sinners” is taken in a supernatural direction both the trailer and mainstay horror director Jordan Peele’s impact on non-superhero mainstream filmmaking foretold.
The film is alive with the glory of song-and-dance abandon, good-old jump-scare core and social commentary, an interesting genre-blend that Coogler shows unsurprising deftness in assembling. For this reason, “Sinners” surpasses Peele’s “Get Out” follow-ups “Us” and “Nope” — solid films but with memorable concepts, conceits and performances, not memorable characters.
Once “Get Out” was out of the bag, audiences knew what to expect. The same plagued M. Night Shyamalan for years after “The Sixth Sense.”
As for Coogler, he’s done the day-in-the-life drama, sports franchise relaunches, and plenty of tentpole superhero world-building. With his touchdown into horror land, he’s proven the first auteur hailed as “the next Spielberg” who just may become such yet sometime down the line.
Escaping the Marvel beast is enough to celebrate; let alone delivering a fresh take on something as bankable, but not necessarily as prestigious as vampirical folklore that is not ironically adored hot trash, but actual art with as much industry staying power as its creator.
What’s more: Tom Cruise is a big fan, and vows to work with Michael B. Jordan in the future.
Here’s hoping “Mission: Impossible — Final Reckoning” keeps us as compelled as “Sinners” did come next Tuesday.