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From Deadly To Nerfed
Dec. 31st, 2025 10:23 amA pair of small time gangsters join a raucous party in a converted barn when they're attacked by vampires in 2025's Sinners, not From Dusk Til Dawn. Director Ryan Coogler has been quite upfront about his influences, citing Robert Rodriguez, director of From Dusk Til Dawn, as a major influence. But does Sinners amount to something more than the sum of its influences? No, but it's a pleasing diversion.
Really, it's like From Dusk Til Dawn through the lens of a modern left-wing partisan. It's set in the '30s but the characters don't talk like '30s characters but rather like 2000s college students playing a table top RPG set in the southern U.S. in the '30s. Two men are shot in the street and bystanders barely react. Two shop owners are unperturbed, one of them at first unaware anything had occurred because he was inside the shop at the time, the filmmakers apparently unaware that the sound of shots ringing out in the middle of the street would've been loud and unusual. Yet the characters can't hide their emotions when talking about racial inequality. Of course, we never see any police.
Michael B. Jordan, for no reason I can see except to show off his acting chops, plays identical twins Smoke and Stack, World War I veterans who've become gangsters in Chicago. They come back to the film's setting, Clarksdale, Mississippi, to open a juke joint. They employ their young cousin, Sammy, played by Miles Caton, who's the best part of the film. While all the dialogue and the other performances feel very modern, Caton actually sounds like an old-fashioned blues musician and it was a pleasure watching him perform. However, he's at the centre of what I'd nominate for "cheesiest scene of 2025" when the magic of his guitar conjures people from the past and present, including a gaudily dressed electric guitarist and a Beijing opera dancer.
The action scenes are decently handled and Ryan Coogler is a competent director. Much as his Black Panther was really an echo of Thor, this film is an echo of From Dusk Til Dawn that plays it much safer. One of the pleasures of From Dusk Til Dawn, and a lot of '90s arthouse cinema, is the feeling that anything could happen at any moment. Sinners stays firmly on a track already laid down, its path further narrowed by the constraints of modern political neuroses. But for some people, diluted excitement might actually be preferable. If you're afraid of being offended, this movie's probably safe. At least until the list of politically sanctioned topics and manners changes again.
