Sinners (2025)

This was an interesting spin on the vampire film. The film blended myth, music, and diversity. The last one is much more complex then what people think because it also fell flat on true understanding of JEDI/DEI concepts, but more on that later.

The plot of the movie revolves around a want to be musician with special gifts and his two cousins who have a habit of finding and getting into trouble. When his cousins hold the opening night for their club vampires show up and chaos and mayhem takes center stage. The acting in the film was pretty good with Michael B. Jordan pulling off playing twins. Supposedly he actually got coaching from a set of twins to help make his performance more believable and it was a success. To me though the character that stood out was played by Yao. The blending in of Asian culture into a black focused movie was very well done.

At the same time this movies focuses very heavily on music. Not only does it control the mood of the scenes, but is a driving force in the film. The character of Sammie comes from a gospel background and plays blues music. I will fully admit that I am not a fan of blues, but the way it was structured into the film made sense. To me the most powerful scene in the film is when Sammie is playing in the club and the style of the music blends into African and African American music throughout time. Each of the time periods represented into the music also brings in physical characters in everything from African ceremony dress to modern hip hoppers. In this scene they also include some of the Asian musical time as well for a representation of the Asian characters in the film.

The place where the movie fails in JEDI/DEI is that it made the main vampire Irish. There are so many European countries that they could have made their vampire from. If they wanted to go with the 'evil' colonizer they could have used England, France, or Spain, but instead they chose to make the Irish the villain in the film. For those who do not know there was a large chunk of American history where the Irish were not considered 'white' and were an abused population. This is where American history gets dirty and does not fit clear cut stereotypes which people like to place DEI/JEDI topics. By ignoring the past of the Irish the film makers failed in truly showing how diversity has been impacted by hate and 'racism' in a historical placed film. I feel that the writers/producers/director (basically the who film staff) needed to have a cultural historian working/consulting on this film. If they had one, they either decided not to listen to them or the historian had no idea what they were doing by signing off on that aspect of this film. To be this was a big enough blunder as an expert in so many different parts of this film for it to massively impact both my scoring and view of the film.

A teenager found proof to challenge a 'professional' (professor) that said that the signs were not real and just the Irish trying to victimize their history. Article link below in picture sources.

So, if they would have made the vampire anything other then Irish I would have given this movie 4 stars out of 5 or a B. Since for a diversity focused movie that showed an entire lack of understanding of American history as a whole I have to give it 2 stars out of 5 or a D. I just hope that in the future the people that were a part of this film spend more time working on research before they make decisions that negatively impact the quality of their work.

Picture 1 From: https://musesofmedia.ca/2025/04/10/sinners-review/

Picture 2 From: https://www.aaihs.org/the-sinners-movie-syllabus/

Picture 3 From: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/ryan-coogler-sinners-box-office-opening-1236193272/

Picture 4 From: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/film-tv/a64567733/sinners-ruth-e-carter-costumes-interview-2025/

Picture 5 Irish Example 1 From: Judy, or London Serio-Comic Journal, August 3, 1881. https://picturinghistory.gc.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/WildBeast-hires.png

Picture 6 Irish Example 2 From: https://www.history.com/articles/teen-debunks-professors-claim-that-anti-irish-signs-never-existed

Picture 7 From: https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3852287/sinners-trailer-ryan-cooglers-vampire-movie-inspired-by-from-dusk-till-dawn-and-salems-lot/

Picture 8 From: https://screenrant.com/sinners-no-sequel-ryan-coogler-great-explainer/