Sinners: Buddy Guy’s Box-Office Blockbuster

There is a long history of blues musicians confronting supernatural evil. In this case, vampires replace hellhounds, but they certainly follow an accepted uncanny blues precedent. Fittingly, it takes place in storied Clarksdale, Mississippi, where two notorious former bootlegging twin brothers have returned to open a juke joint. Unfortunately, a vampire also comes to town in director-screenwriter Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, which is still playing in theaters.

Even though they have been gone for seven years, half of Clarksdale still remembers the identical “Smokestack” twins, Elijah “Smoke” Moore and Elais “Stack” Moore—the black half. The town’s severe racial divide is only bridged by Bo and Grace Chow, who operate general stores on both sides of the main street.

The Smokestacks intend to open a new juke, so they recruit crusty old bluesman Delta Slim and their young up-and-coming guitarist cousin Sammie “Preacher Boy” Moore to supply the entertainment. However, there is sure to be trouble since Stack’s biracial-but-passing ex, Mary is coming. So will Pearline, an inconveniently married vocalist, who has been giving Preacher Boy the eye.

However, the real trouble comes when Remmick, an old Celtic vampire, and a recently-turned former KKK married couple try to crash the party. Wisely, the Smokestacks are reluctant to invite in freaky white weirdos, but the vampires can be very persuasive and deceptive. Smoke’s ex-wife Annie might also have some insight into the evil lurking outside, as a hoodoo practitioner.

Eventually, the great Buddy Guy plays an important part in this tale, but it would spoilery to explain how. Regardless, it is safe to say his role plays to his strengths and it some ways serves as a glorious capstone to his legendary career. It should be noted his main appearance comes soon after the closing credits start—and it is a scene that holds great significance to the film’s narrative. (There is also a post-credits stinger that is worth sticking around for, but does not impact the storyline to any degree.)

Frankly, Buddy Guy deserves to have his name above the title. That said, Michael B. Jordan’s already considerable star-power raises even higher with his tour-de-force performance as the Smokestack Twins. He is all kinds of fierce and dangerously charismatic. It is an unusually accomplished and memorable portrayals of twins, even though the Smokestacks are not as sharply differentiated as the twins played by Theo James in The Monkey or Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringer—but he is still at that level.

Yet, perhaps the cast-member most deserving an awards campaign might be Delroy Lindo for his understated but still scene-stealing work as Delta Slim. He channels decades of blues lore, while getting most of the film’s laughs with Slim’s dry—yet well-lubricated, if you know what I mean—wit.

Another virtue that sets Sinners apart is the wealth of fully developed supporting characters—at least a dozen’s worth. Li Yun Li and Yao are definitely two standouts as the Chows, who turn out to be much more than convenient devices to travel between Clarksdale’s segregated halves. Plus, Jack O’Connell brings the bravura flamboyance of his Rogue Heroes character, but he manifests it in a much more sinister manner as the vampire Remmick.

Rogue Heroes Season 2, on MGM+

Eight decades after WWII, many in the United Kingdom now question why Lt. Col. Robert Blair “Paddy” Mayne never received his nation’s highest military honor, the Victoria Cross (VC), nor has any other member of the Special Air Service (SAS), the commando unit he led throughout North Africa and Italy. In fact, no subsequent SAS commando has received the VC, which is strange, considering their valorous history. The hit show prompting these questions also offers an obvious explanation. The snobby officer class happily let the SAS fight and die on their behalf, but they never considered the highly effective but ill-disciplined unit proper soldiers. The disdain was mutual, at least it is throughout the second season of creator-writer Steven Knight’s Rogue Heroes (a.k.a. SAS Rogue Heroes), still adapted from Ben McIntyre’s nonfiction book, which premieres tomorrow on MGM+.

At the end of season one, Lt. Col. David Sterling, the co-founder of the SAS and then-Major Mayne’s commanding officer had been captured and interned in an Italian POW compound. Consequently, he has far less screentime in season two. However, Mayne more than capably picks up the slack. He also gets a new Sterling, Lt. Col. Bill Sterling, who is much more a proper officer according to the way top brass thinks. Of course, Mayne considers him an aristocratic dilettante. Nevertheless, the new Sterling is a better, more conscientious advocate for the SAS, or the SRS (Special Raiding Service), as they are temporarily renamed, than Mayne realizes.

Regardless, Montgomery and Allied command continues sending the SAS/SRS on foolhardy advance missions, paving the way for the regular army’s Italian invasion, because they keep surviving, killing many Germans and fascists in the process. Given their track record, Eve Mansour, the Algerian-born Free-French spy, who also happened to be David Sterling’s lover, hopes to rendezvous with Paddy Mayne, hoping to support his efforts and possibly glean some intel for De Gaulle regarding the expected invasion of France. Surely, the SAS (as they insist on calling themselves) will be in thick of any such operation.

One way or another, the SAS/SRS keeps rolling, but they are all not completely immune to the horrors of war, just the increasingly in/famous Paddy Mayne, who does not merely laugh in he face of death—he double-dog-dares it. There is no question Mayne is the star of season two and Jack O’Connell runs with it.

Indeed, O’Connell swaggers, snarls, and howls like a champion. You would almost think O’Connell was classically trained, given Mayne commanding bravura poetry recitations—one of the commando officer’s many eccentricities that worries Staff Sgt Jim Almonds, his designated conscience and voice of reason. That is a tough duty to draw.

It is also hard sharing the screen with O’Connell, but Corin Silva and Theo Barklem-Biggs shine developing season two’s other standout characters, Almonds and Sgt. Reg Seekings. Indeed, Barklem-Biggs would generate awards buzz in a more perfect world for the way he portrays Seekings’ PTSD (as we would call it today), as well as his righteous fury at the civilian casualties resulting from the National Socialists’ ruthlessness.

Unbroken: Louis Zamperini, Sportsman, Survivor, Hero

Despite his death this July, Louis Zamperini will still be honored as the posthumous grand marshal of the upcoming Rose Parade. His honors were often unconventional. Although he did not medal at the 1936 Olympics, he captured the world’s attention with his record-setting final lap of the 5,000-meter. He intended to build on his performance at 1940 Olympics, scheduled to be hosted by Tokyo. Unfortunately, he would come to Japan under radically different circumstances. Angelina Jolie brings Zamperini’s harrowing true story to the big screen with a respect and conviction that make Unbroken (trailer here) one of the more refreshingly old fashioned Christmas releases.

Zamperini was always a bit of an unruly kid, but at least it helped him develop his natural speed. With his brother’s encouragement, Zamperini channeled his raw talent, becoming a local track star and a surprisingly exciting Olympic longshot. Then WWII erupted. The Olympics would be canceled until 1948. Commissioned in the army, Zamperini had a string of good luck as a bombardier, but fortune turns when he is dispatched on a so-called rescue mission in a malfunctioning replacement plane.

For forty-seven grueling days, Zamperini and two comrades were adrift on open waters with no supplies to speak of. Frankly, he and fellow survivor Russell Phillips were not rescued, per se. They were taken into custody by the Imperial Japanese military. Unfortunately, he attracts the attention of Corporal Matsuhiro Watanabe (a.k.a. “The Bird”) in the worst way possible. Recognizing Zamperini’s inner fortitude, Watanabe sets out to break his spirit and his body.

Arguably, Jolie and a battery of screenwriters (including William Nicholson and the Coen Brothers) let the Bird off easy. According to published accounts, he was unrepentantly brutal, well earning his place on MacArthur’s list of forty most wanted war criminals (#23, grimly impressive for a non-commissioned officer). They really could have easily waved the bloody shirt to a greater extent, but instead they chose to focus on Zamperini’s remarkable resiliency. In this respect, the film it quite true to history, depicting the Olympian’s refusal to make propaganda broadcasts in exchange for easier living conditions and many of the resulting punishments Watanabe meted out upon him.

To her credit, Jolie also forthrightly incorporates the role faith played in fortifying Zamperini, but the film never mentions his long post-war association with the Billy Graham Crusade. Regardless, she is not intimidated by a little bit of prayer, a decent serving of American exceptionalism, and a whole lot of guts and testosterone. She is still quite glamorous, but she’s also more man than most studio-establishment filmmakers. Of course, that probably explains why Unbroken has met with mixed reviews so far.

Following up ’71 and Private Peaceful, Jack O’Connell gives a career best performance, concluding his personal war-is-Hell trilogy as the resolute Zamperini. He is just as baby-faced as in prior films, but he conveys a sense Zamperini has grown up in a hurry, as was typically the case for his generation. It is a tough but believably human performance. It is harder to get one’s head around Japanese glam-rocker Miyavi (Takamasa Ishihara) as the sadistic, vaguely effeminate Watanabe, but at least he suggests some sort of psychological dysfunction going on, without excusing or even humanizing the camp guard to any extent.

Strangely, Unbroken features several British actors in supporting (and lead) roles, which seems to be a mistake, if only because it inadvertently invites comparison to films like Bridge on the River Kwai and Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. Nevertheless, it justly celebrates the courage of Zamperini and his fellow prisoners. Some of the historical set pieces work better than others (the 1932 Olympic sequences feel comparatively small), but it never drags during its one hundred thirty seven minute running time. Recommended for general audiences, Unbroken is now playing nationwide, including the AMC Empire in New York.

Private Peaceful: Brothers in Arms

When two movie brothers go off to war, it is a lead pipe cinch one of them is not coming back. The questions will be which one and under what circumstances. The answers will be revealed in a series of flashbacks throughout Pat O’Connor’s WWI drama, Private Peaceful (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Adapted from the novel by War Horse author Michael Morpurgo, Private will incorporate the themes of Paths of Glory and Saving Private Ryan within trenches of Flanders, but Simon Reade’s screenplay scrupulously takes its time establishing the Peaceful family dynamics before reaching that point. Charlie Peaceful is the older, brasher brother, who always looked out for the shier, more sensitive Thomas “Tommo” Peaceful. Poor Tommo will become increasingly withdrawn, first blaming himself for the death of their gamekeeper father and then watching Charlie marry Molly Monks, the childhood friend they both love, after getting her in a family way.

Initially, Tommo Peaceful volunteers as a way of escaping his broken heart, but he quickly learns the bitter realities of trench fighting and chemical warfare. Soon his brother enlists, despite his parental obligations, in order to keep Tommo alive. Naturally, Charlie Peaceful clashes badly with the gung ho Sgt. Hanley, ultimately leading to the court martial seen in deliberately cagey snippets throughout the film.

The notion that the officers and war boosters were blithely anticipating previous wars is hardly a new insight, but Private adds a clumsy element of class warfare in the person of the corpulent Colonel, who owns the estate employing the Peacefuls’ father and subsequently exploiting the Peaceful mother and brothers. “Guns and horses, that’s how we beat the Boers,” he blusters. As great as the late Richard Griffiths was (we prefer to remember him in Withnail & I rather than Harry Potter), his turn as the Colonel is total caricature.

On the other hand, the fraternal drama is rather honest stuff, quite nicely turned by two of the UK’s fastest rising stars. Private technically predates ’71 and For Those in Peril, clearly showing why Yann Demange picked Jack O’Connell as the young face of war’s chaos in the former, while George MacKay demonstrates an affinity for guilt-tormented brothers that would also manifest in the latter.

In fact, O’Connell is considerably more dynamic here than he is convincingly portraying Demange’s overwhelmed fresh recruit. Indeed, it is the young cast members who carry Private, including the smaller supporting players, such as Eline Powell, who is terrific as Anna, Tommo’s potential French love interest.

While it lacks the tragic sweep of Galipoli, Private is an effectively micro-focused period anti-war film that should be considered a cut or two above standard PBS Masterpiece programming. O’Connor balances the familial drama with the horrors of war well enough in the third act, but tarries somewhat in the mid-section devoted to the difficult days following the senior Peaceful’s death. Earnest and respectable, Peaceful Private is recommended on balance for fans of British literary adaptations when it opens this Friday (10/31) in New York at the AMC Empire.