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Tag: Michael B. Jordan

  • ‘Sinners’ is the best movie of the year | movie review

    ‘Sinners’ is the best movie of the year | movie review

    Sinners follows a pair of infamous twins who return to their hometown to open a juke joint of their own only to find a darkness pervades.

    Sinners manages to be a folk horror, western drama, southern gothic, Blaxploitation thriller, quasi-musical and, oh yeah, a vampire movie exploring deeply rooted themes about our society while being one of the most devilishly entertaining movies of the year. With immersive world-building, a memorable cast of characters elevated by a stellar ensemble and musical numbers and action scenes that will take your breath away, writer-director Ryan Coogler may have just given us his magnum opus. 

    Sinners now streaming on HBO Max.


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    Although it takes place over a single day, Sinners is about centuries. It’s about the foundations of our culture, our country and our world. It’s about how the trauma of hate and division crosses time, boundaries and races like an illness that can destroy what we love—and how joy is the antidote. That’s a lot of thematic heft for a movie that is in equal parts a folk horror, western drama, Blaxploitation thriller, quasi-musical and, oh yeah, a vampire movie. The most impressive feat director-writer Ryan Coogler (Black Panther, Creed) achieves is finding a balance between genre and meaning—and one begets the other. And in the end, creating something completely singular. Perhaps his masterpiece.

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    It’s the Southern United States in the 1930s. Jim Crow era. Infamous twins Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan doing stellar work defining the twins’ separate personalities) return to their small hometown with a dream to fulfill: open the best juke joint in the county in a barn they recently bought from a maybe-Klan member. Hell, maybe even the state. Armed with a truck full of liquor and beer from their time in Chicago crossing (and double crossing) with the Irish and Italian mobs, they trek across the county to put the finishing touches on their new joint. Quite literally getting the band together.

    They pick up their young cousin and blue guitar prodigy Sammie (Miles Caton) much to the chagrin of his pastor father who warns him of “temptations” that lurk. Smoke picks up lush but talented pianist Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) by bribing him with real Irish beer to play at their joint instead of his usual gig. Stack picks up his former lover Annie (Wunmi Mosaku)—she serves as a sort of general store for the community though her proclivities for the mystical come in handy—with whom he shares trauma with. He asks her to cater the opening. Chinese storeowners and couple Bo (Yao) and Grace (Li Jun Li) are tasked with making signage for the venue while their old pal Cornbread (Omar Benson Miller) is asked to be bouncer.

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    The first act of the movie has the breezy coolness of Coogler’s other work—like he’s allowing the rhythm of composer Ludwig Göransson’s blues-inspired score to keep us moving. The world building, while a slow burn, is immersive and detailed in a way that is so enjoyable to explore. Like you can feel the dust-filled breeze and summer heat as the twins charm and strongarm their way across town gathering what they need for the opening. The movie could have lazed with these characters for hours and I would’ve been grateful. However, for as enjoyable as it is, it starts to lay the foundation for the southern gothic horror that is rooted in the very real horrors of a Jim Crow-era South.

    By the time evening falls, it’s easy to forget that Sinners is a horror movie. Though Coogler maintains a dread-filled atmosphere, the movie is about Black joy, Asian joy and simply the joy of being sure and safe somewhere where your identity is accepted and understood. The successful launching of the juke joint in the barn itself feels momentous because in a short amount of time we’ve grown to know and love the characters. Whether it’s the easy banter between the twins, the warmth of Annie, the humorous drunken quips of Delta and Cornbread, or the seductive allure of Pearline (Jayme Lawson) and Mary (Hailee Steinfeld). It makes the turn to horror all the more entertaining (and heartbreaking)

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    When it does take the turn, it does so with a devilish grin courtesy of Jack O’Connell as the charming but menacing Remmick who has slowly recruited more people to join his group of undead townsfolk that really want to get in on the action of the party. With the same acute attention to detail and rhythm, Coogler masterfully guides the movie towards full-blown genre in a way that is irresistibly macabre.

    However, the heart of Sinners—both figuratively and literally the middle of the movie—is a musical scene that sees eras and people and races and music blending together in the barn. It is an amalgamation of all that makes the movie great. Its eclectic score paired with its warm cinematography swirling around characters we’ve grown to love and will miss when they’re no longer on our screens dancing with nothing but love and joy in their hearts. Meanwhile, the weight of their collective histories and futures join them in the frame to create in a single image a thesis of Sinners. That through all the pain and hate we experience, it is for the love and joy we fight it with that we endure it.

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    Hey! I’m Karl. You can find me on Twitter and Letterboxd. I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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  • 'Just Mercy' is a powerful legal drama — movie review

    'Just Mercy' is a powerful legal drama — movie review

    Just Mercy follows the true story of a civil rights attorney as he tries to prove the innocence of a man on death row

    One-sentence review: Just Mercy may hit a lot of the familiar beats of a based on a true story legal drama, but the performances by Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, and Rob Morgan more than make up for its flaws.

    As far as based on a true story legal dramas go, Just Mercy is on the better side. To be frank, there’s often a limitation to the quality of these kinds of movies because they’re made to be accessible by a wide audience — usually by credence from the studio. And while it doesn’t really break out of the mold, the two performances at the center of the film, by Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx, are enough to power through any of the typical moments.

    Adapted from his autobiography, Just Mercy follows attorney Bryan Stevenson (Jordan) who, fresh out of Havard Law School, chooses to go to rural Alabama to set up a non-profit focused on freeing wrongly convicted death row inmates. There, he’s joined by Eva Ansley (Brie Larson), a local advocate who helps him set up his operation that is of course met by local resistance.

    He takes up the cases of several inmates including Herbert Richardson (Rob Morgan) and, in particular, Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx).

    Just Mercy Poster

    McMillian was accused of murdering an 18-year-old local girl despite having a tight alibi and a case against him that was built on the flimsy testimony of a witness — of course, he was white. Like any movie telling this similar story, Stevenson suffers many setbacks — and a few wins — along the way that director Destin Daniel Cretton portrays without patina. His main struggle is to have the court even rehear the case, a process that’s blocked more than once by our bigotted villains — the town’s district attorney (Rafe Spall) and sheriff. Their moments are maybe too on the nose — as is a scene where Stevenson is extraneously pulled over in the middle of the night. That doesn’t make them any less effective. It works to communicate the story but is frustratingly by the numbers.

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    However, there’s a moment midway through the movie where we focus in Herbert as his execution is brought forward. The movie slows its pace of hitting various plot points and spends time contemplating what it must be like to know you’re being put to death. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t tear up during the well-directed sequence that Rob Morgan gives a devastating performance in. I wish there were more moments like it.

    Jordan’s performance as Stevenson and Foxx’s as McMillian are so human and empathetic of their characters that they just might be two of the best of the year. The screenplay, by Cretton and Andrew Lanham, gives them ample room to explore not only the personal journey but to talk about it in the context of our society and how the death penalty, but design, is flawed and rooted in racist institutions. It’s that exploration that elevates Just Mercy even slightly above its genre counterparts. 

    I can’t underplay just how good the performances in the film are and how integral they are to its success. It’s a reminder that Foxx, who has down fewer dramas in recent years, is a terrific screen presence and Jordan, who was egregiously snubbed for Black Panther at the Oscars last year, is a bonafide Hollywood leading man who can easily hold the frame.

    The movie, out of Christmas Day, is not an easy sit like other movies that sanitize stories about race. In particular, I’m thinking about Green Book. Just Mercy mercifully lacks a white savior narrative and also doesn’t deny that the issues still exist today and that Bryan Stevenson is still fighting for those on death row. Like Dark Waters, the quality of the film shouldn’t matter, even if it’s completely solid. This is a story well-told and a story worth hearing.