Producers: Zinzi Coogler, Sev Ohanian and Ryan Coogler   Director: Ryan Coogler   Screenplay: Ryan Coogler   Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton, Jack O’Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Omar Miller, Li Jun Li, Delroy Lindo, Peter Dreimanis, Lola Kirke, Buddy Guy, Nathaniel Arcand, Saul Williams, Yao, Helena Hu, David Maldonado and Andrene Ward-Hammond   Distributor: Warner Bros.

Grade: B+

Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” is a vampire movie, but it has more on its mind than depicting the grisliness as the undead creatures rip open the necks of their victims to suck out their blood.  It does that, but only in roughly a third of its two-hour-plus running time.  The rest is devoted to the pernicious exploitation of blacks in American history, the brutality of persistently segregated society in the Deep South of the early twentieth century, and the distinctive culture of ex-slaves and their descendants, represented not only by the blues but the music’s relation to religious beliefs that in legend connect it, and other traditional forms, with spirits and demonic forces.

That’s a heady brew, and Coogler’s control of it is sometimes unwieldy and often heavy-handed.  Yet in his hands the bizarre mixture proves so flamboyantly eye-catching, melodramatically compelling and musically invigorating that the result is intoxicating.

The story is set over the course of a single day and night in the small town of Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1932.  After a prologue showing a battered young man, Sammie Moore (Miles Caton), aka Preacher Boy, stumbling into a service conducted by his father Jedidiah (Saul Williams), clutching a guitar and haunted by images of a nightmarish experience, it switches to the previous morning.  Twins Elijah and Elias, aka Smoke and Stack (both Michael B. Jordan), introduced in a technically astonishing tableau in which they pass a cigarette back and forth, have returned to their hometown after stints on the front lines in World War I and the gangland milieu of Prohibition-era Chicago.  They intend to use their wad of cash—and a truckload of bootleg booze—to open a juke joint that very night in an abandoned mill they rent from redneck racist Hogwood (David Maldonado).

They quickly set to work getting the place ready and recruiting their principal staff—their cousin Sammie, who’s trying to escape his father’s stultifying control and whose musical talent blows them away; Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo), an alcoholic local piano and harmonica virtuoso; and Cornbread (Omar Miller), a sharecropper lured from the cotton fields, who will be their bouncer.  Grocers Grace and Bo Chow (Li Jun Li and Yao) come aboard after she dickers over their share of the take.

The women in the twins’ lives also come into play.  For Smoke it’s biracial Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), who’s been passing for white as the wife of a wealthy Arkansas man; she happens to be back in town for the funeral of her mother and berates Smoke for abruptly exiting their affair.  Stack makes a journey to the grave of the child he had with Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), who lives beside it in a cabin filled with the instruments of her Hoodoo practice.  Sammie, meanwhile, meets Pearline (Jayme Lawson), a young woman with a controlling husband and an ethereal singing voice.  The steaminess in the scenes of the couples is yet another ingredient in Coogler’s rich cinematic stew.

Meanwhile the film occasionally cuts to Remmick (Jack O’Connell), a desperate fellow fleeing a Choktaw posse led by Chayton (Nathaniel Arcand).  He begs refuge from Joan and Bert (Lola Kirke and Peter Dreimanis), a couple living in an isolated shack who unwisely invite him in.  As Chayton says, Remmick’s not what he seems—he’s a vampire who, his red eyes gleaming and fangs protruding, turns the unsuspecting couple not only into bloodsuckers but players in a travelling musical trio.

In a nod to tradition about the Faustian bargain that bluesman Robert Johnson purportedly made for his genius, Jedidiah has warned Sammie as the boy leaves the church with his guitar, “You keep dancin’ with the devil, one day he’s gonna follow you home.”  Now, even as Sammie galvanizes the Juke’s opening-night crowd with a song titled “I Lied to You”—in a remarkable sequence that demonstrates not only Coogler’s (and cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s) love of elaborate tracking shots but of telling anachronism (the gyrating crowd includes a DJ spinning platters, a rock guitarist, African dancers and even a robed figure in a ceremonial Chinese mask, all pointing to the eternal power of music)—Remmick and his back-up partners show up to request admittance.  The brothers are suspicious, but it’s Annie who recognizes their real nature and acts to repel them when they’re accidently invited in (just one of the ways in which Coogler has incorporated traditional vampire lore into his screenplay).

There follows not only a “From Dusk Till Dawn” melee on a larger scale—and with more of those astounding tracking shots—than that earlier film managed, but a strangely unsettling dance sequence in which Remmick leads a troupe of the Juke patrons he’s turned in an ensemble dance while he does an Irish jig to “Wild Mountain Thyme.”  The crux of the argument by which he tries to lure the hesitant into joining his cult is the promise of perpetual, uninhibited freedom in an eternal life untroubled by pain—an attractive vision for anyone, perhaps, but especially those suffering in a society which traps and exploits them, leaving only a single night of “sinful” abandon to hope for.

Of course there must be a final battle in which many perish, on both sides.  But that’s not the end, because one of the brothers will have to face a second assault the following morning, from Hogwood and his KKK followers, another life-taking cult.

But Coogler isn’t finished yet.  He adds a long sequence during the closing credits featuring blues icon Buddy Guy, a surprising identification and an equally surprising reappearance.  A second addendum at the credits’ end finishes things satisfyingly.  You should be forewarned that if you’re accustomed to departing when the closing roll begins, you’ll be missing out even more than if you forego the stingers in an MCU movie.

“Sinners” is Coogler’s work—that of what used to be called offhandedly an auteur—but like all films it’s a collaborative effort, and the writer-director’s vision is realized superbly by all concerned.  Visually it’s a knockout, with Arkapaw’s gleaming IMAX-bound cinematography brilliantly showing off the period details in Hannah Beachler’s production design and Ruth E. Carter’s costumes.  The VFX (supervised by Michael Ralla) and SFX makeup and prosthetics designed by Michael Fontaine amount to in-your-face pulp, and though the film is long and packed with characters and incident, Michael P. Shawver’s editing is smooth, keeping the various threads clear while avoiding ponderousness.  Equally important is Ludwig Göransson’s score, which embraces both simple guitar riffs and lush orchestral swoons while complementing the blues numbers rather than warring with them (“I Lied to You” is also his work, written with with Raphael Saadiq).  

The cast is also uniformly at one with Coogler’s aims.  Jordan delivers two electrifying turns, managing to capture Smoke and Stack’s similarities while exhibiting, in a nuanced fashion, their differences in attitude (and dress) and their determination to protect one another.  O’Connell makes a genuinely creepy nemesis, at once cheekily upbeat and menacing.  Steinfeld is smolderingly seductive and Lawson prettily enthusiastic, while Lindo is dead on as the boozy veteran.  But the real finds among the outstanding supporting cast are Caton, whose soulful Preacher Boy exudes both ambition and boyish earnestness, and Mosaku, in whose take-charge Annie earthy warmth is exceeded only by steeliness.

There are times when “Sinners” comes across as overstuffed, but the extravagance ends up feeling like inspired lunacy rather than mere bloat, the unlikely juxtaposition of serious sociological commentary and gleeful cinematic shlock working surprisingly well.  The ramshackle Juke turns out to be a mansion with many—and varied—rooms, but each of them has something special to offer, and if sometimes the structure seems a bit shaky, in the end it would be churlish to complain too much over such a grandiose feast.          

Producers: Andrew Macdonald, Allon Reich, Matthew Penry-Davey and Peter Rice   Directors: Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland   Screenplay: Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland   Cast: D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, Kit Connor, Finn Bennett, Taylor John Smith, Michael Gandolfini, Adain Bradley, Noah Centineo, Aaron Mackenzie, Evan Holtzman, Henrique Zaga, Joseph Quinn, Charles Melton, Alex Brockdorff, Joe Macaulay, Laurie Duncan, Jake Lampert, Aaron Deakins, Tom Dunne, Donya Hussen, Heider Ali, Rayhan Ali, Nathan Altai, Aso Sherabayani, Amira Dutton and Inbal Amram    Distributor: A24

Grade: B+

General William Tecumseh Sherman famously declared that war is hell, and writer-director Alex Garland seems intent on demonstrating that onscreen.  His previous film “Civil War” included sequences of grisly power in depicting military conflict in a politically fractured America, and now he teams with Ray Mendoza, a veteran of the Iraq War, to fashion a harrowing recreation of a single failed mission in that U.S. Middle East intervention.  

The result is an extremely frustrating film.  On the one hand, it’s extraordinarily well-crafted and possesses undeniable visceral power.  On the other, it’s an isolated snapshot that lacks context and a broader perspective.  Moreover, it’s attempting something that’s frankly beyond cinema’s reach.

The incident depicted occurred in the Second Battle of Ramadi in November, 2006, as part of a wider operation to purge the city in central Iraq of Al-Quaeda-affiliated insurgents.  Navy SEAL team Alpha One is briefly introduced among a bunch of comrades reacting with wild whoops to a sexy dance video.  Soon they’re quietly moving down the street of an unnamed city until one of them, presumably team lead sniper Elliot (Cosmo Jarvis) selects a house, which they enter and commandeer, placing the terrified family, woken from their sleep, under the watchful gaze of two Iraqi interpreters.  They punch a hole in a second-story wall through which Elliot points the muzzle of his rifle, not to fire but to use the scope to monitor the crossroads below.

The platoon settles in for what’s clearly a reconnaissance mission.  Elliot mans the scope except when he needs a break; then Frank (Taylor John Smith) spells him.  Commanding officer Erik (Will Poulter) is first among equals, while Ray (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, playing writer-director Mendoza), the communications man, scribbles information while maintaining contact with other units and the more distant control hub.

For a while all is quiet as the surveillance continues and Elliot notes increasing foot traffic in the square.  Then a grenade is suddenly lobbed through the sniper hole; Elliot is injured and medic Sam (Joseph Quinn) attempts to tend to his wounds while Ray calls in a request for a Bradley to evacuate them.  When it arrives and the men attempt to board it under cover of a smoke canister, however, an IED explodes, further injuring Elliot and Sam as well.  The Bradley flees, and the men rush back into the house, now under full attack from the surrounding rooftops.  They call for a “show of force,” a low jet fly-over that rocks the neighborhood and raises a cloud of dust.

As Ray and Macdonald (Michael Gandolfini) do their best to treat the wounded with morphine over their screams of pain, Erik requests Alpha Two, operating nearby, to come to their aid.  Under command of Jake (Charles Melton) they respond, though their progress is delayed by insurgent fire.  Finally they arrive, and when the Bradley crews resist returning because of the enemy fire, Jake persuades John (Finn Bennett), his com man, to impersonate the operation commander and order them to redeploy.  The vehicles eventually arrive, wounded and survivors scramble aboard and all depart, leaving locals and insurgents to take charge of the streets.

As fashioned by Mendoza, Garland, the technical crew and the cast, “Warfare” might be categorized as a docu-drama, but one hewing to a verisimilitude that borders on the fanatical.  Mendoza’s screenplay is derived solely from his memories and those of the other squad members—there are no big speeches or exhibitions of Hollywood-style bonhomie, just the clipped conversational jargon of professionals going about their jobs turned urgent in an increasingly desperate situation.  The Ramadi setting has been recreated in England with remarkable precision by production designer Mark Digby, art directors Charlie Meakin and Declan O’Brien and costumers David Crossman and Neil Murphy, in much the same fashion as Stanley Kubrick did Vietnam in “Full Metal Jacket.”  The supple camerawork of David J. Thompson and editing of Fin Oates capture both the near-blasé atmosphere of the first thirty minutes and the fraught intensity of the final sixty.  The special effects team led by Ryan Conder and visual effects contingent under Simon Stanley-Clamp insert their work seamlessly into the live-action footage.  The makeup and prosthetic work is also outstanding.  And one mustn’t overlook the superb sound design by Glenn Freemantle, which makes the aural ambiance as vital as the visual one.  Taken as a whole, this is one of the most realistic depictions of combat ever achieved in a film that isn’t pure documentary.                          

Adding to the impact, every member of the cast is fully committed, and none showboats.  Actors playing the SEALS squad went through a sort of boot camp to build a sense of camaraderie, and it shows.  One can see the characters’ fierce devotion to one another.

Yet in the end the film is unable to do what it aims for—to invest this single episode with the weight of representing “war” in general, and to “immerse” viewers in its horror.  To be sure, it scrubs the smug paeans to courage under fire and medal-worthy heroics so typical of “patriotic” films from its portrayal of a bloody, brutal incident without in any way demeaning the bravery of the men involved.  But other films have done that, and none has captured the “essence” of combat.  All a film can do is depict particulars as accurately as possible, as “Warfare” does in this specific instance with painstaking fidelity.

But it must be admitted that in isolating what happened to SEAL team Alpha One in November, 2006, so completely from the larger context of the Iraq effort “Warfare” fails to put it into perspective.  It was, after all, a single episode in a conflict begun under problematic circumstances—inaccurate intelligence and erroneous political claims—and conducted in often dubious ways.  The script presumes viewers know all this, but such a presumption, in an age when ignorance about even current events is rampant, is dangerous.  And what of the larger details surrounding the mission itself?  What was its purpose?  (To prepare the way for an entrance by ground troops, though that’s not made clear here.)  Why was there no detailed extraction plan if things went wrong?  Why were these men left effectively to fend for themselves by the command structure? Presenting this story in a vacuum doesn’t do those who lived through it, or those of us viewing the film, justice. 

Nor can any film be truly immersive.  As much as filmmakers might like to put us inside their narrative, they can’t; we’re still always observers, and always detached observers, however emotionally invested in characters on screen as we might become.  In this case, we can empathize with the men thrown into such dire circumstances, but we can’t actually experience what they did—especially since we can’t share the remarkable camaraderie that develops over a time of service in a military squad.  We share time with them for only ninety wrenching minutes, after all, not the months or years they’ve spent together.

But concentrating overmuch on what “Warfare” doesn’t or can’t do shouldn’t blind us to what it does, and does well.  It’s an uncompromising recreation of one ghastly incident in which American soldiers were put in harm’s way without due consideration of the possible consequences.  One breathes a sigh of relief that in this case they were extricated, even if tragically bloodied.  One is left to wonder, looking at the situation in Iraq today, whether their sacrifice, and that of so many who didn’t escape with their lives, was worth it.