A sizzling blend of the supernatural, sexy and something more raging and righteous, Sinners is the 1930s-set, bastard brainchild of Creed and Black Panther director Ryan Coogler. Teaming him with muse Michael B Jordan for the fifth time, it’s thrillingly strange, increasingly exhilaratingly action-packed entertainment that boasts plenty of bite.

Set amidst a black community in the furiously racist American South, Jordan plays twin gangster brothers Smoke and Stack, with charisma oozing from every pore. The pair return to their Mississippi hometown fleeing a mysterious mess in Chicago and open a juke joint with the help of Smoke’s ex, the Hoodoo conjurer Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), their prodigiously talented young blues musician cousin Sammie (confident newcomer Miles Caton), and hard-drinking harmonica and piano man Delta (Delroy Lindo). When the devilish Remmick (Jack O’Connell, making for a fun, full-throttle, Irish folk-singing baddie) arrives on opening night with a couple of similarly bloodthirsty buddies in tow, things quickly descend into chaos.

It’s far from a straightforward tale of good versus evil, with music stirring up trouble and Jordan possessing a potency that’s enjoyably at odds with the oppressive times, while the murkier it all gets the better. Ferociously performed, sumptuously shot and saltily scripted, Sinners channels such disparate influences as The Color Purple, The Krays, From Dusk Till Dawn, The Thing, and Django Unchained, but more often managing to feel like its own satisfyingly out-there thing.

The film’s atmosphere and actors are extremely seductive, even if its ideas don’t always feel fully formed. And if there’s some tension between the schlock and the sincerely told story, Sinners is a fantastically cinematic effort that engages imaginatively with the era and the frustratingly futile black quest to be free.

Sinners is in cinemas from Friday 18 April.