Movie Reviews

Sinners Is Bold, Ambitious, and Just Misses Greatness

Published

11 months ago

April 18, 2025

Sinners Is Bold, Ambitious, and Just Misses Greatness

It’s a film that will haunt me just as much as it will keep me wondering who Ryan Coogler wants to be on the other side of Creed and Black Panther.
Photo: Warner Bros./Everett Collection

I have always felt that the South gives America back to itself, ripping illusions from truth. When I see Looney Tunes images of Bugs Bunny sawing off Florida, as if relinquishing land below the Mason-Dixon Line will save our fractured society, my heart breaks. When I read op-eds that suggest Manhattan should be fortified in the face of climate disaster but New Orleans should be consigned to oblivion, I see cowardice in the face of reckoning. The stories we tell about the region, specifically the ones that paint the South as solely a backward territory not worth saving, underscore a basic reality: This is a country built on forgetting. The majority of this country’s Black population is in the South. All this humor and resignation might as well ensure the Black, the brown, the queer, the working class toil under oppressive politicians to death. It certainly complicates the fact that, as poet Eugenia Collier wrote, “It is here that the agony of chattel slavery created the history that has yet to be written. It is the South that has dispersed its culture into the cities of the North. The South is, in a sense, the mythic landscape of Black America.”

With a curiosity that is capacious, Sinners — the 1932-set, southern-bound horror epic from writer-director Ryan Coogler — demonstrates something powerful: a deep reverence for the Black South. Its most beautiful and bracing imagery is that of cotton fields plumbed by sharecroppers, endless skies and dusty roads, the verdant expanse of a land that has witnessed so much sorrow. It opens with an animated segment that bounces through cultures to highlight the esteemed ancestral figures whose artistry pierced the veil between time and space, pausing on West African griots before it lands in 1932 Clarksdale, Mississippi. It’s the waning days of Prohibition when the infamous twin brothers Smoke and Stack (played with gusto by Michael B. Jordan) return to their hometown after cutting it up with Al Capone up North, packing illegal liquor and a firmly held dream to open a juke joint by us, for us. The film takes place primarily over the course of a single day and night, barely touching an encroaching dawn. “I heard they don’t have Jim Crow up there,” Sammie Moore (a sweet-natured Miles Caton), their young cousin with a spiritual talent for the blues, mentions to the twins. But Smoke and Stack respond with expeditious intensity. Chicago is just as racist as the rest of the country, even if its skyscrapers and largess give it a different casing: “We came back home to deal with the devil we know.”

The way the film swims through the contradictions, considerations, and cultural reverie of the rural South is genuinely enlivening. Sinners, festooned with intriguing ideas and even more beguiling characters, grabs the hem of greatness even if it never takes hold, hobbled as it is by a desire to hold more than it can properly contain in its over-two-hour run time, leading to a story that feels misshapen after the setup. Coogler does not rush these proceedings. Instead, he marinates in the happenings and taste of his characters and the world around them after the twins buy a disabused sawmill to operate as a juke joint from a man who is quick to call them “boy” and later proves to be a crucial member of the Ku Klux Klan. Blessedly, a didactic rendition of anti-Black racism does not follow. Coogler trusts his audience, letting the emotional stakes of his movie unfurl slowly. The twins are differentiated by color theory. Smoke in blue, Stack in red. But their differences would be apparent even without that visual cue. Stack is lascivious and abrasive. Jordan carries himself with braggadocio as a man who takes up space unapologetically and never moves quietly in a room, even if he says nary a word. He’s quick to a smile and even quicker to violence. But so is Smoke, though Jordan gives him a taciturn tenderness. He’s bound to Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), a hoodoo practitioner with whom he shares a dead child and all the grief therein.

The twins are crucial leads for the film, but Sammie is arguably the true protagonist. It’s his coming of age that provides Sinners its structure — in which he is forced to choose between his gifts as a supernaturally skilled blues musician and the reserved church-bound life his preacher father, Jedidiah (Saul Williams), desires for him. If the fortunes of Sammie, Stack, and Smoke were the only important threads, Sinners would still be an epic, but Coogler isn’t content to rest there. The film plays like it was made by someone who understands they may never be able to commit to such grand cinematic ambitions — or, at least, the resources necessary to make them a reality — again. (The rights to this film revert to Coogler in 25 years, a rarity in the history of Hollywood dealmaking.) There is also Sammie’s love interest, the married singer Pearline (Jayme Lawson). And Delroy Lindo as piano and harmonica blues musician Delta Slim. A drunkard with a golden spirit. Stack’s own ragged love story involves Mary (Hailee Steinfeld, feasting on the opportunity this film provides her), a woman with a half-Black grandfather who lives on the white side of town but prefers to spend time with the Black people she considers kin. One of my favorites of the important supporting cast is the charismatic Chinese couple who runs two shops in town and provides material support to the twins’ efforts to start their juke joint — Grace (Li Jun Li) and Bow Chow (Yao), who have an adolescent daughter, Lisa (Helena Hu). The actors are quickly able to sketch a deep bond between their characters, and their presence is a reminder that the soul of the South may be Black, but it is a region defined by a more complex diversity it rarely gets credit for.

Coogler luxuriates in the lives of these people, and the ecstatic performances they provoke, for about an hour before Jack O’Connell’s vicious Irish vampire, Remmick, cuts a bloodied path through their stories. Sinners is a horror film, stitched together with menacing imagery of sunlight as clear as crystal and blood darker than death. Smoke trails off Remmick’s body as he stumbles to the home of a family affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan, just as dawn spills upon the land. He weasels his way into being invited inside, escaping the Native American vampire hunters on his tail. They eventually arrive at the doorstep of the couple, who refuse to trust the words of a group of Indigenous men and therefore guarantee an unsuccessful rescue. (It’s a pity we don’t see more of these characters. It’s such a delicious idea.) Vampires are the best of cinema’s major monsters, and Coogler mostly adheres to legible legends. There’s garlic, silver, stakes to the heart, invitations necessary to darken doorsteps. But he adds a few less common touches that have potential — eyes that glow, an elevated monstrousness that arises as they feed, drooling over the mere thought of blood. (In Sinners, draining a human doesn’t just sate an appetite. A vampire absorbs the memories and skills of their victim, too.) But Remmick’s motivations — explained in a stray line of dialogue — are too thinly drawn and haphazardly framed. (Remmick desires to connect to the ancestors vampirism has barred him from knowing; devouring Sammie’s talent for conjuring spirits of the past through music is the means to doing so. All this is only gestured at.) So is the horror he wreaks. It’s as if the camera flinches. Moments of tragedy and violence are never dwelled upon properly, like Coogler has too much to drink in otherwise to give these moments the time they need. There is no sonic tension; spaces like the juke joint feels visually scattershot and confused once Remmick’s fiery violence crowds the room. Then the emotional beats that mark the conclusions of these characters’ stories arrive without the heft necessary for the losses to bruise. Somehow, I was left wanting more. Certain connective tissue is lost in favor of excess elsewhere.

As much as Sinners succeeds as a celebration of the Black South, it ultimately fails as visceral horror. Yet Coogler’s film is distinct in a way I am curious to see audiences take in. While he fails to make his genre terror visually or narratively gut-wrenching, he avoids blunt messaging about racism and history and sidesteps the most laborious, rote choices of the modern Black horror boom, filled with films that prioritized making racial strife clear to non-Black audiences. Instead, Sinners communicates quite magnificently to Black folks at a register many recent, mainstream Black horror directors before him failed to reach. Coogler’s script is trying to shake the table. He brings up questions about Black people’s misguided adherence to Christianity, who counts as Black and a part of the community, the ancestral reverberations of Black music, finding love against the odds, and the beauty that is born when two distinct bodies become one. These themes make the vampire saga feel rapturous, bold, ambitious, and brimming with curiosity and care. Even with its sloppy flaws, in particular the script’s inability to cohere once the true action is under way, it is a film that got under my skin and continues to haunt my imagination.

And what Coogler accomplishes in the realm of sensuality is genuinely exciting. The characters, save for the young Sammie, feel grown. These are adults with the seasoning that time, heartbreak, and wisdom provide — and which the actors communicate with clear-eyed commitment. There are three sex scenes in the film, including a tender reconnection between Smoke and Annie. But it’s Stack having Mary spit in his mouth during their sex scene in a storage room of the juke joint that stands out for sheer delight. A surprising recurrence in the film is its appreciation of the real eaters out there; at one point, Stack straight-up explains cunnilingus by comparing it to the soft licks of eating ice cream. The film reaches its apex in a vivaciously ambrosial scene in which Sammie flexes dulcet tones and guitar skills, inspiring everyone toward sweat-laced dancing. A West African drummer and dancer appears, an echo from the ancestors of the introduction. A funk guitarist strides next to Sammie. When the hip-hop figures appear, the scene teeters toward being a touch too earnest. But for a moment, this blend of past, present, and future touches transcendence. A cinematic rapture capturing the best staging, framing, and composition of the film. It is a phantasm of Black Southern delights. As Delta Slim tells Sammie, “Blues wasn’t forced on us like that religion.”

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Movie Reviews

Movie review: Ballet-themed erotic drama ‘Dreams’ dissipates in finale

Published

17 minutes ago

February 28, 2026

Press Room

Movie review: Ballet-themed erotic drama ‘Dreams’ dissipates in finale

Mexican writer/director Michel Franco explores the dynamics of money, class and the border through the spiky, unsettling erotic drama “Dreams,” starring Jessica Chastain and Isaac Hernández, a Mexican ballet dancer and actor.

In the languidly paced “Dreams,” Franco presents two individuals in love (or lust?) who experiment with wielding the power at their fingertips against their lover, the violence either state or sexual in nature. The film examines the push-pull of attraction and rejection on a scope both intimate and global, finding the uneasy space where the two meet.

Chastain stars as Jennifer McCarthy, a wealthy San Francisco philanthropist and socialite who runs a foundation that supports a ballet school in Mexico City. But Franco does not center her experience, but that of Fernando (Hernández), whom we meet first, escaping from the back of a box truck filled with migrants crossing the U.S./Mexico border, abandoned in San Antonio on a 100-degree day.

His journey is one of extreme survival, but his destination is the lap of luxury, a modernist San Francisco mansion where he makes himself at home, and where he’s clearly been at home before. A talented ballet dancer who has already once been deported, he’s risked everything to be with his lover, Jennifer, though as a high-profile figure who works with her father and brother (Rupert Friend), she’d rather keep her affair with Fernando under wraps. He’s her dirty little secret, but he’s also a human being who refuses to be kept in the shadows.

As Jennifer and Fernando attempt to navigate what it looks like for them to be together, it seems that larger forces will shatter their connection. In reality, the only real danger is each other.

The storytelling logic of “Dreams” is predicated on watching these characters move through space, the way we watch dancers do. Franco offers some fascinating parallels to juxtapose the wildly varying experiences of Fernando and Jennifer — he enters the States in a box truck, almost dying of thirst and heat stroke; she arrives in Mexico on a private plane, but they both enter empty homes alone, melancholy. During a rift in their relationship, Fernando retreats to a motel while working at a bar, drinking red wine out of plastic cups with a friend in his humble room, ignoring Jennifer’s calls, while she eats alone in her darkened dining room, drinking red wine out of crystal.

These comparisons aren’t exactly nuanced, but they are stark, and for most of the film, Franco just asks us to watch them move together, and apart, in a strange, avoidant pas de deux. Often dwarfed by architecture, their distinctive bodies in space are more important than the sparse dialogue that only serves to fill in crucial gaps in storytelling.

Cinematographer Yves Cape captures it all in crisp, saturated images. The lack of musical score (beyond diegetic music in the ballet scenes) contributes to the dry, flat affect and tone, as these characters enact increasing cruelties — both emotional and physical — upon each other as a means of trying to contain their lover, until it escalates into something truly dark and disturbing.

Franco, frankly, loses the plot of “Dreams” in the third act. What is a rather staid drama about the weight of social expectations on a relationship becomes a dramatically unexpected game of vengeance as Jennifer and Fernando grasp at any power they have over the other. She fetishizes him and he returns the favor, violently.

Ultimately, Franco jettisons his characters for the sake of unearned plot twists that leave the viewer feeling only icky. These events aren’t illuminating, and feel instead like a bleak betrayal. The circumstances of the story might be “timely,” but “Dreams” doesn’t help us understand the situation better, leaving us in the dark about what we’re supposed to take away from this story of sex, violence, money and the state. Anything it suggests we already know.

‘Dreams’

(In English and Spanish with English subtitles)

1.5 stars (out of 4)

No MPA rating (some nudity, sex scenes, swearing, sexual violence)

Running time: 1:35

How to watch: In theaters Feb. 27

Movie Reviews

MOVIE REVIEWS: “Mercy,” “Return to Silent Hill,” “Sentimental Value” & “In Cold Light” – Valdosta Daily Times

Published

12 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

“Mercy”

(Thriller/Crime: 1 hour, 39 minutes)

Starring: Chris Pratt, Rebecca Ferguson, Kali Reis

Director: Timur Bekmambetov

Rated: PG-13 (Violence, bloody images, strong language, drug content and teen smoking)

Movie Review:

“Mercy” is a science fiction movie based on one of the more common themes of moviedom lately, artificial intelligence (AI). This crime thriller cleverly creates an intriguing story using technology and the justice system, yet it fails to be consistently interesting and intelligent throughout. The conclusion is less significant than the initial setup, as the concluding scenes become typical action sequences.

Detective Chris Raven (Pratt) of the LA Police Department is a huge supporter of the city’s new judicial courtroom. Crimes are now judged by an AI program (Ferguson) in the Mercy Court. The court is run by an artificial program that makes decisions based on all of the evidence before it without any prejudice. Detective Raven is all for this system until he is convicted of killing his wife. Now he must use all of the data, including the AI‘s ability to tap into everyone’s electronic devices, security cameras, and even into government files, within reason, to prove he did not murder his wife.

Mercy is an interesting movie. It entertains throughout, even when the story gets sloppy and characters’ actions are irrational. This mainly occurs during the final scenes. The movie tries too hard to insert unneeded narrative twists. This is disappointing because the story is interesting. What makes it fascinating is that it happens in real time. This is the most brilliant facet.

All the other theatrics are unnecessary. Director Timur Bekmambetov (“Profile,” 2018; “Wanted,” 2008) and “Mercy’s” producers should have just kept the ending simple, no plot twists or superfluous action sequences.
Grade: C (This flick needs some mercy. Let the trial begin.)

“Return to Silent Hill”

(Horror: 1 hour, 46 minutes)

Starring: Jeremy Irvine, Hannah Emily Anderson and Robert Strange

Director: Christophe Gans

Rated: R (Bloody violent content, strong language and brief drug use.)

Movie Review:

“Return to Silent Hill” is about one man’s quest to return to the love of his life. The problem is she has moved on to the afterlife. Meanwhile, audiences lose part of their life watching this movie, which is unlike any of the two prequels in this series. This one is a psychological horror that bores.

Artist James Sunderland (Irvine) decides to return to Silent Hill, a place where many people died during a devastating illness that nearly enveloped the entirety of the city’s population. What is left there is a horror show of freakish creatures, all with violent intent. Still, Sunderland searches for the love of his life, Mary Crane (Anderson).

Think of this movie as a slow suicide, where a guy goes back to retrieve his dead girlfriend. To do so, he must travel to the modern land of the dead that Silent Hill has become. This one is a type of swan song by the main character, and the movie becomes less scary while lackluster romantic notions wander aimlessly.

Grade: D (Do not return to see this.)

“Sentimental Value”

(Drama: 2 hours, 13 minutes)

Starring: Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas and Elle Fanning

Director: Joachim Trier

Rated: R (Language, sexual reference, nudity and thematic elements)

Movie Review:

“Sentimental Value” is a Norwegian film that won the Grand Prix in France’s Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Motion Picture. It is a solid drama filled with symbolism and family connections. It is brilliant performances by a talented cast under the direction of Joachim Trier (“The Worst Person in the World,” 2021).

This screenplay is about Gustav Borg (Skarsgård). He is a father, grandfather and a famed film director. He stayed away from his two daughters, actress Nora Borgwhile (Reinsve) and historian Agnes Borg Pettersen (Lilleaas), while he was creating works as a filmmaker. The director comes back into the lives of his daughters after the death of their mother. Their reunion leads to a rediscovery of their bond at their family home in Oslo.

Stellan Skarsgård is always a solid actor. He takes his roles and makes them tangible characters that seem like you know them, even when they’re speaking a foreign language. That is the quality of his act and why he gets nominated for multiple awards each season.

“Sentimental Value” is a valuable movie filled with enriching sentiment. It is an enjoyable film for those who value a good drama. The acting and original writing alone make the movie worth it. “Sentimental Value” starts in a very simple way, but everything in between, even when low-key, remains potent. Joachim Trier and writer Eskil Vogt have worked together on multiple projects such as “The Worst Person in the World” (2021). Their pairing is once again worthy.

Grade: A- (Any motive valuable movie.)

“In Cold Light ”

(Crime: 1 hour , 36 minutes)

Starring: Maika Monroe, Allan Hawco and Troy Kotsur

Director: Maxime Giroux

Rated: R (Violence, bloody images, strong language and drug material)

Movie Review:

“In Cold Light” sticks to a very straightforward story, primarily taking place over a short period. The problem is the story leaves one in the cold. Audiences have to guess what is being communicated because this movie uses American Sign Language (ASL) without subtitles. For those moviegoers who do not know ASL, they are left deciphering characters’ actions and facial expressions during some pivotal scenes.

Ava Bly (Monroe) attempts to start a legit life after prison. Her life changes when Ava’s twin, Tom Bly (Jesse Irving) is murdered while seated next to her. As her brother’s killers pursue her, Ava must evade law enforcement, which contains some crooked cops led by Bob Whyte (Hawco).

For a brief moment, this movie hits its exceptional moment when Oscar-recipient Helen Hunt enters the picture as a motherly Claire, a crime boss who seems more like a social worker/psychologist. Her long scene is wasted as it arrives too late.

French Canadian director Maxime Giroux’s style has potential in his first English-language film, but it does not fit a wayward narrative. A rarity, this crime drama has characters commit many dumb actions at once.

Moreover, Giroux (“Félix et Meira,” 2014) and writer Patrick Whistler forget to let their audiences in on their story. They allow much to get lost in translation, especially during heated conversations between Monroe’s Ava and her father, Will Bly, played by Academy Award-winning actor Troy Kotsur (“CODA,” 2021).

Grade: C- (Just cold and dark.)

More movie reviews online at www.valdostadailytimes.com.

Movie Reviews

Movie Review: ‘Goat’ – Catholic Review

Published

1 day ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

NEW YORK (OSV News) – “Goat” (Sony) is an animated underdog sports comedy populated by anthropomorphized animals. While mostly inoffensive, and thus suitable for a wide audience — including teens and older kids — the film is also easily forgotten.

The amiable proceedings center on teen goat Will Harris (voice of Caleb McLaughlin). As opening scenes show, it has been Will’s dream since childhood to play for his hometown team, the Vineland Thorns.

The inhabitants of Vineland and the other areas of the movie’s world, however, are divided into so-called bigs and smalls, with professional competition dominated, unsurprisingly, by the former. Though Will stoutly maintains that he’s a medium, those around him regard him as too slight and diminutive to go up against the towering bigs.

Despite this prejudice, a video showing Will more or less holding his own against a famous and arrogant big, Andalusian horse Mane Attraction (voice of Aaron Pierre), goes viral and inspires the Thorns’ devious owner, warthog Flo Everson (voiced by Jenifer Lewis), to give the lad a shot. Though Will is understandably thrilled, his path forward proves challenging.

Will has idolized the Thorns’ sole outstanding player, black panther Jett Fillmore (voice of Gabrielle Union), since he was a youngster. But Jett, it turns out, is not only frustrated by her situation as a star among misfits but scornful of Will’s ambitions and resolute in helping to deprive her new teammate of playing time.

Given such divisions, the Thorns’ fortunes seem destined to continue their long decline.

“Roarball,” the invented game featured in director Tyree Dillihay’s film, is essentially co-ed basketball by another name. As produced by, among others, NBA champion Stephen Curry, the movie — adapted from an idea in Chris Tougas’ book “Funky Dunks” — is an unabashed celebration of hoop culture both on and off the court.

Viewers’ enthusiasm may vary, accordingly, depending on the degree to which they’re invested in the real-life sport.

Moviegoers of every stripe will appreciate the fact that the script, penned by Aaron Buchsbaum and Teddy Riley, shows the negative effects of self-centeredness as well as the value of teamwork and fan support. Plot developments also showcase forgiveness and reconciliation.

Will’s story is, nonetheless, thoroughly formulaic and most of the screenplay’s jokes feel strained and laborious. Still, while hardly qualifying as the Greatest of All Time, “Goat” does provide passable entertainment with little besides a few potty gags to concern parents.

The film contains brief scatological humor and at least one vaguely crass term. The OSV News classification is A-II — adults and adolescents. The Motion Picture Association rating is PG — parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.