The Mississippi Delta, 1932. Slavery is outlawed but to be black still means picking cotton and living in fear of the KKK. Yet to these badlands dapper, local gangster twins Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan à la Tom Hardy’s Ronnie and Reggie Kray) have returned from Chicago where they apparently found an equal opportunities boss in Al Capone.
This backstory explains the holdall of cash with which they buy an old saw mill and the truckload of Irish beer and Italian wine with which they will establish their new juke joint. It will ply punters with the best booze and blues in the delta. The opening night goes swingingly. Son of a preacher-man Sammie (Miles Caton) plays a mean steel-stringed guitar and despite his youth has a blues voice sweetened by the bitterness of black experience. Then the vampires strike.
Director Ryan Coogler, who helmed Marvel’s Wakanda movies and the first two Creed films – the unexpectedly very good Rocky follow-ups – has this time apparently been inspired by the freaky tale of real-life blues guitarist and singer Robert Johnson, of whom it is said that the devil gave him the choice, at a Mississippi crossroads, to sell his soul in exchange for success.
