I'm going to talk for a bit on Ryan Coogler's SINNERS. I am going to mention a couple of things that people may consider spoilers so if you don't want to know, don't read on. Just know that the film is very good.
The film is the story of two brothers known as Smoke and Stack return from Chicago in order to set up a juke joint in their old home town. The problem is that there is something out there looking for their cousin who has the power to do wondrous things with music.
I really like the film but I have some issues with the film.
No, wait correction, I think the first act of the film is perhaps one of the greatest first acts in cinema history. The set up of the story has so much going on, in a good way, that it transcends just being a horror film. This is a film that speaks volumes about society and humanity. Its a glorious filmmaking and scripting. I was absolutely certain that this film was going to be at the top of my best film of the year list.
The problem is that at the start of the second act a character is introduced in a way that makes no sense in connection within the context of the film's story's rules.
AND IF YOU HADN'T LOOKED AWAY, IT IS AT THIS POINT I WILL GOING SPOILERY.
Now I managed to largely not find anything out about the film, before I saw it, but someone did let slip that the film had something to do with vampires. I didn't know what that meant, but I knew they were in the plot. Because of it when Remmick, a Celtic vampire, shows up, I kind of broke with the film. While Remmick is on okay character (he the least well drawn and is not so much a person as representation of an idea), and he has the problem that he shows up in the daylight...at a house in the middle of nowhere, where there was no way he could have not hidden from the light. While I was willing to go with it, the fact that he was being persued by a crew of Choctaw vampire hunters made me look sideways at the film. While I was intially willing to go with it (Coogler could have been reseting the cinematic legend, or actually going with some real legends where vampire do walk in the daylight), it quickly became clear it doesn't make internal sense because in this film daylight kills the vampires.
After the arrival of Remmick the film shifts back to what is happening at the juke joint, and it's good, but it isn't quite as good as the first act. I was okay with that because I suspected that the film was just setting the table for the final act. We were getting to know the various characters and we are getting more details about their connections. I was fine to go with it because it gave us some great musical sequences.
And then the film shifts again as it goes into the third act. It's here that the film finds it's footing again, but not as the film promised meditation on society and morality from the first act, but instead as a seige film, with the living surrounded by the undead outside. In the third act, outside of some speachifying the film has largely abandoned the promise of the first act. Yes this is really good, but it's disappointing compared to the promise of the first act.
The third act is a largely solid B horror film, with some exciting turns. You can't really think about the plotting of things like how could so few vampires turn so many people so fast, especially since we see there is a lag time. (I will not get into other problems with the vampires as seen in the film, largely because I will be accused of over thinking).
It's almost like Coogler had two scripts and he just connected them up.
Actually the first act is incredibly tightly ploted and the rest isn't. It feels as though Coogler had the first act worked out and the ending and he didn't have time to fully chart the path between them. As I said film stops showing us and instead has people preach to us in the later portions. The fully drawn characters and situations becomes a sketch at the end as well drawn human beings fall away into being movie characters. Things don't feel fleshed out or thought out as if it just sort seemed like a "good" idea and because it was a horror film no one would notice. At times it feels like the they weren't paying attention to all the plot points where they bring in things like the hive mind which doesn't seem to work (I am okay with the idea of shared knowledge from the blood). I wonder if they went into production without it all worked out.
As tempting as it would be to pull the plotting apart, I won't. I like the film too much.
I know you're wondering if I like it so much why am I complaining? Because that first act is nigh on perfect and what follows isn't. I'm disappointed. I wanted a film that makes sense internally from start to finish. I wanted film that both scared me and made me think. I wanted a film that had the grand complexity of the first act, with all the themes, characters and tension all the way to the final post credits fade out. (And I'm not sure if that works since it makes us view Sammie differently and has me questioning the hive mind even more since wasn't Remmick the alpha and in theory in control?)
Is SINNERS worth seeing? Oh yes, absolutely. It's a very good film. But with all of the over the top talk, I would just dial expectations back.
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