It’s proving ever more challenging to drag a group of people into a movie theater to see a film that isn’t either a children’s movie translation of a video game, a Disney reboot of an animated classic that was better off the first time around, or the latest Marvel retread. But if there was a film tailor-made for the cinematic experience that should get the adult crowd scouring to locate the largest screen imaginable to see it on, “Sinners” is that movie.
To set expectations properly: “Sinners” isn’t my favorite film. I have some issues with the story structure, and I am particular about the horror genre and how such films should unfold. “Sinners” hovers into a rarified pocket of horror, where the film presents as one way and then takes an abrupt shift into horror for its second half. Think Robert Rodriguez’s “From Dusk Till Dawn,” and you’ll be on the right track. I also detected elements of John Carpenter’s “Assault on Precinct 13,” “The Thing,” and George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead.” I will say writer/director Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” is a fairly successful trip down the American Southern Gothic horror genre, and it may wind up, over time, being considered a classic.
What Coogler is doing in “Sinners” is interesting. The horror, which, trust me, the film does shift into, is a slow build, and there is a point to it all. Underneath the facade of two Black twin brothers, who return, or is it escape, from gangland Chicago back to their childhood home in the Jim Crow South of Mississippi in 1932 to stake their claim for the American dream, is already a landmine field of dread and potential horror. For as much as some Americans would like to hide the history, we know the history, and we know what white men will do to these twins, brilliantly played by Michael B. Jordan in a dual role, if they are successful in their venture to establish a juke joint. While Coogler doesn’t dwell on this, it isn’t far from the audience’s mind, as Coogler carefully builds up tension.
This tension build-up allows Coogler to create backstory and character in a way that’s long been missing from much of American cinema. Coogler, whom film fans will know from his work on the films “Creed,” “Black Panther” and its sequel, along with his debut film “Fruitville Station,” delivers his first original screenplay that is not based on any prior film or story, and it’s smart. He fills the story with period details that he doesn’t spend precious runtime explaining. Either an audience will recognize the meanings behind certain things, or they won’t. And that’s the sign of an assured storyteller. Too often, everything is spelled out for the audience in today’s film landscape.
So far, I haven’t told you much about the film and its plot. And to do that would spoil the fun and surprises. If you didn’t venture out to the theaters this past weekend to see it, there is a good chance word-of-mouth has hit you by now, and you may have learned what is going on with “Sinners.” Fine. The secret is out, but you didn’t hear it from me.
For the rest of this review, I want to discuss why you should see this film not only in a theater but also on the largest screen you can.
Coogler and his cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw shot “Sinners” utilizing a combination of 70mm and IMAX 70mm film stocks. And for the standard 70mm scenes, they used the super rare Ultra Panavision 70 format, which boasts one of the widest film aspect ratios of 2.76:1. And for the IMAX 70mm scenes, if you are able to catch it in an IMAX theater, you’d see the scenes filmed with IMAX cameras in a full aspect ration of 1.43:1. I wanted to see “Sinners” in IMAX, but I wasn’t able to get down to Reading, Massachusetts this past weekend. The Jordan’s Furniture IMAX is one of New England’s actual IMAX theaters, with laser projection and a screen tall enough to accommodate the full IMAX frame. Anyone who has experienced the smaller LIEMAX theater in Albany knows that all IMAX theaters are not the same.
It was no easy feat locating a theater in our area showing “Sinners” on a large enough screen to generate the impact of the Ultra 70mm aspect ratio, but the AMC Theaters in Saratoga Springs were showing “Sinners” in their premium theater, so I opted for that.
Although the non-IMAX screening did not showcase the full, tall IMAX screen scenes, seeing “Sinners” on a giant screen capable of showing off the super-wide 2.76:1 aspect ratio was still a treat. Coogler doesn’t waste the opportunity the wider canvas affords him. Scenes that call for multiple characters to appear on screen at once get full treatment. Dynamic framing builds tension, and a dazzling scene where the climax of a juke joint music jam culminates in a blend of past, present, and future plays out with fever-pitch intensity heightened by the extra frame length.
No doubt, countless audiences will discover “Sinners” on their big-screen television and will enjoy it. Perhaps they will lament that they missed the opportunity to see this one in the theater. I know I’ll be keeping an eye out for future screenings in 70mm. For select theaters with those capabilities, a small number of 70mm film prints of “Sinners” were made available. Unfortunately, unlike “The Brutalist,” which I caught at a special 70mm presentation a few months ago, the two theaters in Massachusetts capable of showing “Sinners” in 70mm, The Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline and Somerville Theatre weren’t playing it in 70mm. I’m hopeful they’ll get a print down the road. “Sinners” is a film that is textured and layered enough to deserve a second watch.
James Kent is the arts editor at The Mountain Times.
