Ryan Coogler’s new film “Sinners” is an enthralling genre piece packed with style, atmosphere, and personality to be cherished. While it sometimes feels a bit too overstuffed with story ideas and elements which do not get totally mixed that well in my humble opinion, it is still quite entertaining genre fusion on the whole, and I enjoyed and embraced those numerous bold and ambitious moments throughout the film.

The story, which is set in some rural town of Mississippi in 1932, mainly revolves around two African American twin gangster brothers: Elijah “Smoke” Moore and Elias “Stack” Moore, who are both played by Coogler’s regular collaborator Michael B. Jordan. They once left their hometown for their criminal jobs in Chicago several years ago, but they come back with a lot of money and booze, and they are about to open a juke joint at an abandoned mill factory somewhere outside their hometown.

Needless to say, they need some good musicians to draw those potential customers out there, and one of them is Sammie “Preacher Boy” Moore (Miles Caton), a young cousin of theirs. Despite a firm advice from his preacher father, Sammie cannot resist a chance to perform in front of lots of people, and there is a little musical moment early in the story when he demonstrates a bit of his considerable musical talent to one of the twin brothers.

Meanwhile, the movie takes its time in establishing the ground more, and we get to know more about not only the twin brothers but also several other main characters and their town. When Elias comes across his ex-girlfriend Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), the mood is quite awkward between them as things change a lot since he left her at that time (She is now married to some rich white dude thanks to the passing via her light skin, by the way), but it is evident that they are still drawn to each other despite their respective current status. In case of Elijah, he visits the little tomb of a baby born between him and a local Hoodoo practitioner named Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), and he convinces her to join his and his brother’s juke joint practice as they come to sense more of their remaining affection between them.

Around that narrative point, the movie immerses us more into the vivid and realistic world inhabited by its main characters. As a matter of fact, it did the job so well that it made me wonder a bit about how I would look and feel in the town as an Asian dude, and, what do you know, the movie soon introduced an Asian immigrant family running a couple of stores facing each other across the main street of the town (The main reason behind the existence of these two almost identical stores is one of many signs of the Southern racism during that time in the film, by the way).

Coogler and his crew did a splendid job on the whole. Cinematographer Autumn Duran Arkapaw, who previously collaborated with Coogler in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”, deftly builds up that distinctive Southern atmosphere across the screen, which is vividly conveyed to us via the frequent shots of wide cotton fields around the town. The production design by Hannah Beachler and the costumes by Ruth E. Carter are also crucial in bringing more style and detail to the movie, and the score by Ludwig Göransson, who won an Oscar for Coogler’s most commercially successful film “Black Panther” (2018) as Beachler and Carter did, injects the movie with a lot of bluesy mood as required while smoothly mixed along well with a number of big musical performance scenes in the film.

One of these big musical performance scenes, which is incidentally unfolded inside the twin brothers’ juke joint during its opening evening, is particularly striking for good reasons. As Sammie fully demonstrates his unadorned talent in front of a bunch of dancing and drinking people, the mood becomes quite excited to say the least, and then the movie suddenly throws anachronistic elements into the screen to our surprise and amusement. Yes, this could look pretty ridiculous under a lesser director, but it works better than expected under Coogler’s skillful direction, and you may gladly go along with that as appreciating more of its style and ideas.

And then, as announced to us from the very beginning, there comes an unspeakable force of evil, and the situation surely becomes quite intense and bloody to say the least. Although this part feels rather hurried and jumbled compared to the rest of the film, the movie continues to provide more surprise and entertainment for us, and I doubt I will ever forget that wacky juxtaposition between a certain 19th century Irish song and its Southern background, even though I am still wondering whether this is thematically coherent or not.

The main cast of the film are engaging in each own way. While Jordan certainly has the most fun in the bunch as ably going back and forth between his two main characters, Hailee Steinfeld, Jack O’Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Li Jun Li, Omar Miller, and Delroy Lindo bring a lot of personality to their respective supporting parts, and the special mention goes to newcomer Miles Caton, who holds his own place well among the more notable cast members besides handling well his several musical performance scenes in the movie.

In conclusion, “Sinners” is another excellent work from Coogler, who has steadily advanced since his first feature film “Fruitvale Station” (2013). While “Creed” (2015) and “Black Panther” demonstrated more of his considerable talent and potential besides boosting his career a lot, “Sinners” confirms again that he is indeed one of the most interesting African American filmmakers at present, and it will be fascinating to watch how he will leap further from this point during next several years.