Movie Review: Sinners (2025)

Genre: Supernatural Drama Horror Thriller  

Director: Ryan Cooglar  

Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Jack O'Connell, Delroy Lindo  

Running Time: 137 minutes  

Synopsis: In Mississippi of 1932, twin criminal brothers Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan) return from a stint in Chicago determined to open and operate a juke joint for the black community. Their 17 year-old guitar-playing cousin Samuel (Miles Caton) is the star attraction, over the objections of his preacher father Jedidiah (Saul Williams). Old-timer Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) and singer Pearline (Jayme Lawson) are the other recruited performers. Smoke reunites with his estranged wife Annie (Wunmi Musako) and Stack tangles with ex-girlfriend Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), but all seems to be going relatively well on opening night until evil personified in Remmick (Jack O'Connell) crashes the party.

What Works Well: Writer and director Ryan Cooglar conjures up an endlessly entertaining and imaginatively artistic wild genre mash-up, most reminiscent of From Dusk Till Dawn. While vampires, violence, blood, gore, and a high body count (all accompanied by a mean humour streak) dominate the second half, the more serious themes established in the opening hour underpin the mayhem. These include music as a cross-generational influence carrying enormous power, crime as a gateway to hell, and the lure of selling black culture to the wrong power brokers yielding decadence. Bathed in visual beauty and decorated by sensational musical numbers, the storytelling benefits from patient pacing anchored in memorable characters and a strong sense of time and place.

What Does Not Work As Well:  Although Michael B. Jordan is excellent, more could have been done to differentiate the twins. Mary's backstory suffers from neglect relative to her intended influence, and a Ku Klux Klan tertiary sub-plot is awkwardly bolted on. The value of the meandering ending is debatable

Key Quote:

Jedidiah: You keep dancing with the devil... one day he's gonna follow you home.



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Movie Review: Begin Again (2013)

A musical drama with elements of romance, Begin Again offers enough tender torment to transcend genre conventions.

In New York City, disconsolate Gretta James (Keira Knightley) reluctantly performs one of her songs at an open mic night in a dingy bar. She is spotted by down-on-his-luck ex-record company executive Dan Mulligan (Mark Ruffalo).

In flashback, the events leading up to that night are revealed. Dan is separated from his wife Miriam (Catherine Keener) and losing touch with his teenage daughter Violet (Hailee Steinfeld). Drinking heavily, he is fired by his long time business partner Saul (Yasiin Bey, better known as Mos Def).

Meanwhile, Gretta had arrived in New York from England with her up-and-coming boyfriend Dave Kohl (Adam Levine of Maroon 5 fame), who is riding a wave of success after his music featured in a hit movie. Dave is quickly sucked into the celebrity whirlpool and abandons Gretta.

Now Dan promises Gretta he can help her record an album. After Saul turns them away, Dan decides to use the city as a studio, recording Gretta's songs at street level with the urban din as an integral part of the music.

Featuring original music by Gregg Alexander, Begin Again carries enough intelligent freshness to steer clear of most cliches. While the music walks a fine line between genuinely soulful and white-girl-with-a-guitar singer-songwriter banality, most of the songs land on just the right side of evocative. In her first singing role Keira Knightley does enough to convince as a tentative talent, gradually gaining confidence under Dan's tutelage but unsure where she wants her music to take her.

Multiple relationships meld together as Gretta and Dan's lives intersect, and director John Carney, who also wrote the screenplay, deserves credit for keeping personal interactions honest and unpredictable. Gretta is hurt by Dave, Dan and Miriam are surveying the wreckage of their marriage, while Dan and Violet are standing at the edge of a barely functioning father - daughter bond. Professionally Dan's long standing partnership with Saul is in tatters, and Begin Again touches upon the changing fundamentals of the music industry in the digital era.

Lazier scripts would telegraph how all the knots will be untangled, but Carney plays coy throughout, riding the energy of al fresco musical performances in streets, alleyways, subways and roofs to stitch together the various emotional rescues.

Begin Again hums an original tune, only enhanced by the pleasantly intrusive background noise.

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Movie Review: Ender's Game (2013)

A science fiction war adventure, Ender's Game is a hopelessly inept Boys' Own debacle filled with video-game special effects, snarling bullies and little else.

In the future, humanity has repelled an alien invasion by the marauding Formics, an ant-like species intent on colonizing Earth. Preparations for a follow-up war are underway, and children are being groomed as military commanders due to the clarity of their mind and ability to think like the enemy. Colonel Hyrum Graff (Harrison Ford) spots the leadership potential in young teenager Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), although psychologist Major Gwen Anderson (Viola Davis) is not so sure.

Under Hyrum's guidance Ender is pushed through the stages of the space-based military training academy, where he meets various other trainees including the sympathetic Petra (Hailee Steinfeld) and aggressive Bonzo. Ender has to prove himself at every turn, and misses his sister Val (Abigail Breslin). As the preparations for an impending war become more intense, he starts to question everything around him as he struggles to understand the motivations of the Formics.

An adaptation of the book series by Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game carries precious little appeal outside the target demographic of young teenaged boys. The film is a mind-numbing series of rudimentary bully conflicts experienced by young Ender, jazzed up by CGI mostly featuring kids floating around a "Battle Room" firing lights at each other. Any relationship between "training" involving games of tag and the reality of commanding massive battleships is tenuous at best.

Most of what passes as action happens on screens within screens, from Ender experiencing a seemingly profound search for the truth through an ipad game all the way to the climactic battle that entirely surrenders to an incomprehensible pixel show. Director and writer Gavin Hood is unable to elevate the material to anything other than over-elaborate fireworks. The sudden eruption of emotional displays are more embarrassing than effective.

The performances match the material, Harrison Ford and Viola Davis delivering plastic line readings devoid of context, and young Asa Butterfield hamstrung by a never ending series of loner cliches.

After clumsily appending a post-genocidal u-turn towards an exasperating quest for interspecies harmony within a narrative void, Ender's Game cannot end soon enough.

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Movie Review: 3 Days To Kill (2014)

An action thriller combined with a light-hearted family drama, 3 Days To Kill suffers from a significant identity crisis.

Ethan Renner (Kevin Costner) is a CIA operative combating fatigue and a persistent cough, and his mission in Belgrade to terminate the international arms dealers known as Albino and Wolf does not go well. Ethan is then diagnosed with terminal cancer, given months to live and released from duty. He decides to reconnect with his Paris-based estranged family, and reaches out to ex-wife Christine (Connie Nielsen) and teenaged daughter Zooey (Hailee Steinfeld).

But Ethan's attempted return to domestic life is interrupted by the CIA's Vivi (Amber Heard), who entices him back to action by promising an experimental drug that may cure his disease. Vivi is determined to track down Albino and Wolf, and needs Ethan's efficient assassination skills by her side. Ethan juggles his renewed commitment to family life with bouts of surveillance and violence, and tangles with terrorist associate Mitat, a family man who could lead him to the mobsters.

Co-funded by European production money, 3 Days To Kill features the usual collection of vacationing American actors enjoying travelogue-like locales to boost tourism in the old continent. The talent surrounding the project does hold promise, with none other than Luc Besson conceiving the story and co-writing the script, and one-time action movie darling McG accepting directorial duties.

However, the premise is too similar to Besson's Léon: The Professional (1994), except that the budding fatherly relationship between the killer Ethan and his daughter Zooey never comes close to the requisite levels of tenderness. Instead 3 Days To Kill inserts decent action scenes within long stretches of boredom as Ethan plays hapless dad and makes very slow progress towards connecting with Zooey's life.

Elsewhere, flashes of comedy search for their appropriate place between the family drama and the action mayhem, while the quest to liquidate Albino and Wolf takes the far back seat in the family van, lurching forward in awkward bursts as the villains are reduced to props trotted out whenever some shooting is needed.

Kevin Costner and Hailee Steinfeld occupy the centre of the film and ensure a basic level of competence. Connie Nielsen disappears for long stretches, while Amber Heard wanders in as a superhero movie character demonstrating chill abilities to outdrive anyone and arrive at any scene at just the right moment, her icy quips deadlier than any weapon. In her element within all the Euroglitz, Vivi can just about kill with her attitude and shouldn't really need help to eradicate any targets.

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Movie Review: The Edge Of Seventeen (2016)

A high school drama and comedy, The Edge Of Seventeen deftly delves into the world of teenagers where every emotion and setback is heightened.

Seventeen year old high school student Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld) announces to her laid back teacher Mr. Bruner (Woody Harrelson) she is about to kill herself. In flashback, Nadine is revealed to have been an introverted child, while her older brother Darian was easygoing and popular. Nadine suffered a shock when she lost her father early in life, and never got along with her self-obsessed mother Mona (Kyra Sedgwick). But in elementary school she finally found happiness through a long-lasting friendship with classmate Krista.

Now in high school, Nadine still finds it difficult to fit in, and her one true friendship is severely tested when Krista (Haley Lu Richardson) and the hunky Darian (Blake Jenner) start a relationship. Nadine has a crush on cool kid Nick (Alexander Calvert), who probably does not know she exists. Classmate Erwin (Hayden Szeto) appears interested in Nadine, but is equally awkward and tentative. With Mona's insensitivity amplifying a really bad week, the world seems to close in on Nadine.

Written and directed by Kelly Fremon Craig and co-produced by James L. Brooks, The Edge Of Seventeen breathes fresh life into teen coming-of-age high school film. More drama than comedy, Fremon Craig strides into serious terrain for young adults, where friendships are sacrosanct, crises escalate in a hurry and viable options appear limited in the heat generated by raging hormones.

The film is light on its feet despite the weighty subject matter. Fremon Craig is able to represent and emphasize with her characters while still poking gentle fun at the hypersensitive teen world. The scenes are brisk, the dialogue sharp and bright, and the film avoids melodrama even when Nadine's world is at its darkest.

A stripped down Hailee Steinfeld effortlessly carries the film on her shoulders, playing Nadine as a teen overwhelmed by living in her brother's long shadow, still missing her father, feeling invisible when it comes to the dishy boys, and confounded by an egocentric mother (with Kyra Sedgwick delivering some career-best work). Nadine perceives Krista's relationship with Darian as the worst kind of betrayal, triggering a rapid downward spiral towards self-inflicted humiliation and despair.

To soften the often somber tone, The Edge Of Seventeen does seek out moments of wit and humour, and most of these are delivered courtesy of Mr. Bruner. In a performance so intentionally lackadaisical he often threatens to disappear into his teacher's chair, Woody Harrelson as Bruner offers a counterpoint to all of Nadine's angst, at once comforting and exasperating. Without ever lecturing or hectoring, Bruner absorbs Nadine's turmoil and nonchalantly nudges her towards exploring a new thought stream.

Nadine will have to find her own way out of the doldrums. The Edge Of Seventeen exposes the seemingly crushing pressures of growing up and fitting in, and the teenager's extraordinary resiliency and capacity to cope and finally unravel the puzzle of growing up.

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The Movies Of Hailee Steinfeld

All movies starring Hailee Steinfeld and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

True Grit (2010)

Begin Again (2013)

Ender's Game (2013)

The Homesman (2014)

3 Days To Kill (2014)

The Edge Of Seventeen (2016)

Sinners (2025)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: True Grit (2010)

Ethan and Joel Coen turn their attention to a classic Western tale of justice served as seen through the doggedly determined eyes of a young woman. In True Grit, the triple Coen signatures of grand cinematography, dangerous humour and bursts of sudden violence flourish with the help of a stellar cast.

Precocious 14 year old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) arrives in the rough frontier town of Fort Smith. Her father has been killed by the outlaw Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), and no one seems to care: Chaney has fled into the wild territories, and the law cannot be bothered to chase after him.

Mattie wants to bring Chaney to justice. Through an effective combination of persistence, badgering, pleading and financial reward, Mattie joins forces with US Marshall Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) and Texas Ranger Laboef (Matt Damon) and they set off to find Chaney. Cogburn is an aging, hard-drinking law man known for having true grit and for killing more often than capturing outlaws. Laboef has been on Chaney's trail for a long time: Chaney has apparently also killed a Texas senator.

Cogburn and Laboef do not get along, and soon Mattie is having trouble keeping the group together. Eventually they do catch up with Chaney as he rides with the gang of Lucky Ned Pepper. Cogburn and Laboef are outnumbered, out-gunned, and uncoordinated, but with Mattie's help they need to take the initiative and hand out frontier justice.

The story of True Grit is built on the shoulders of young Mattie Ross, and the film is carried by a remarkable performance from newcomer Hailee Steinfeld. Selected after an open casting call attracted 15,000 applicants, Steinfeld demonstrates the maturity of a veteran as the sharp, unwavering Mattie. She steps into centre stage with a calm confidence that dominates the movie and propels the actions of all the other characters.

Jeff Bridges has a lot of fun mumbling his way through mostly incomprehensible dialogue while consuming enough alcohol to flood the west. His eye-patched Rooster Cogburn is a philosophical storyteller who is violent when he needs to be, which is as often as he can manage to turn every threatening situation into bedlam. Matt Damon is lost beneath the facial hair of a Texas Ranger drowning in long-winded pontifications, and most of what he says gets on the nerves of Cogburn, whose return insults are shorter and sharper. Bridges, Damon and Steinfeld make for an entertainingly strained trio who all need each other more than they care to admit.

The Coens alternate between the characters developing and the violent events unfolding, all filmed with eloquence and a respectful admiration for a western landscape as harsh and honest as the people who inhabit it.

In a genre as enduring as the Western, it's difficult to bring too much originality to a film like True Grit. It may not smell overwhelmingly fresh, but what is more important is the comfortable mix of worn leather, cheap liquor, rolled tobacco and gun powder in just the right quantities.

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