Michael B. Jordan's imperfect masterpiece Sinners has a secret in its songs

Despite its current stunning critical reception, Sinners is not perfect. The Ryan Coogler-directed, Michael B. Jordan-acted, action-musical-vampire-romance flick is perhaps a bit over-ambitious in trying to tackle its final genre: social satire and critique. 

But even for its small faults, it is also something else: in short, an incredible, best-of-the-year achievement.

Its unique genre-melting pot follows the Smoke/Stack twins (their combined title derived from both of their nicknames), both played by Jordan. 

The World War I vets-turned-Al Capone gunrunners are back in their hometown of Clarksdale, Miss., after robbing both of Chicago's Irish and Italian mobs. Instead of hiding out, the twins have a plan: Buy an old mill from a local (likely) Klan member, convert it to the swingingest juke joint around, and serve all the Irish beer and Italian wine they've nabbed for a hefty profit. 

Their only problems? Their wayward cousin for one, Sammie (Miles Caton) — better at playing the blues than minding his testy father, the local priest who wants to get rid of their sinful ways. And Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), a love interest whom Stack left behind to protect from the dangerous realities of being seen as Black in the South.

Or worst of all, the fact that the local sharecroppers can only pay in wooden nickels instead of real money, all but guaranteeing their dream of living by their own means will always remain a distant fantasy in a society designed to keep them down. 

Oh yeah, and the drooling vampires singing outside.

Transplanting the always appetizing cinematic cryptid of vampires to the Jim Crow-era South, Sinners sets a demanding goal for itself. Can a horror movie work as a deeply referential essay on the echoing effects of racism, inflicted on one group, which in turn wields it on another?

Can you filter that through the interwoven stories of Irish, Indigenous and Black people competing for land, liberty and respect — both with America's white majority, and amongst themselves?

Can all that be communicated through the metaphor of blues, Celtic and bluegrass music — each with central importance to a people's identity, and each appropriated, remixed and stolen? 

And most importantly, can you make it rip?

There is so much to admire in what Coogler, Jordan and Jack O'Connell — playing our delightfully terrifying vampire villain, Remmick — accomplish here. There's the electricity of a caulked-together Frankengenre, building into something incredibly special, but most importantly, there's Coogler's success in using music to hammer his point home.

It's evident throughout the musical-if-you-squint production. But Sinners' moral shines brightest when Remmick's vampire crew steps to the mic. 

We first hear them sing at the front door of the Black club. Whipping out their instruments, they croon a bluegrass rendition of Pick Poor Robin Clean.