Sinners and Saints: 10 Years On
It’s been a whole decade since one of my favourite genre movies of recent years first emerged, so it felt like a good time to revisit the exhilarating carnage and what makes it special.
William Kaufman’s Sinners and Saints is an old school inspired cop thriller, holding much more in common with auteur movies from the 1970’s and 80’s, compared to modern Hollywood. After a violent, bullet-riddled opening, the story unfolds with time dedicated to police procedure before our hero cop (or flawed, emotionally scarred anti-hero) goes full tilt to take down a gang of mercenaries and expose a military conspiracy.
Looking back, I was aware of the film long before I saw a teaser trailer, but after an early screening in Cannes in 2010, my mind was blown, and I hadn’t seen anything like it for a very long time. This was definitely my kind of movie.
Detective Sean Riley (Johnny Strong, The Fast and the Furious, Daylight’s End) is a very tough cop investigating a series of murders in his hometown of New Orleans. When a clue leads him to a troubled friend from his past (Sean Patrick Flanery, The Boondock Saints), he unearths a major cover-up that triggers a war between local gangs and a group of mercenaries. Battling his own grief from the past and now paired up with a less experienced detective (Kevin Phillips, Notorious), Riley becomes a one man wrecking ball who'll stop at nothing to find the truth and bring about an end to the crime wave tearing his city apart.
Now, the core narrative is nothing particularly radical, but it’s unapologetically exactly what it wants to be: a violent, no-holds-barred cop vs criminals story with tough characters, terse dialogue, stoic leads, nasty villains and action that absolutely pays off. As Strong is such a good and understated actor, he injects a great deal of dramatic weight to the role, not playing an invincible tough guy but rather a scarred anti-hero and something of a ticking time bomb. This is a guy with edge. Lacking an emotional anchor and reason to make it home safe compared to his new partner, Riley is on a warpath and, while far from being invulnerable, charges ahead like a man with nothing to lose.
The action set pieces (with lots of grappling and knife choreography) and the shoot-outs, in particular, are exemplary with stunt choreography from martial arts legend Ron Balicki. There is also a noticeable lack of overbearing music, instead replaced with thundering gunfire and bullets whizzing and piercing nearby metal and brick, which keeps things rooted in sobering reality. These shoot-outs are some of the best in recent times and certainly several notches above typical genre fare, more in common with the likes of Heat and Black Hawk Down (which Strong also appeared in!).
The dramatic cast elevates the proceedings, too. Supporting roles from the likes of Flanery, Costas Mandylor (Saw), Louis Mandylor (The Debt Collector), Kim Coates (Sons of Anarchy), Cliff 'Method Man' Smith (The Wire) and Tom Berenger (Platoon) bring real weight and gravitas. The inclusion of legitimately tough-looking, cauliflower eared bad guys and a small but key role from MMA legend Bas Rutten infuses more authenticity. As an aside, Sylvester Stallone made comments about hiring real MMA fighters to play background soldiers in The Expendables for this same reason. Whether it’s a quick passing shot or a full action scene, there’s no doubt it brings believability and legitimacy to the storytelling, also the case in Sinners and Saints. And when Riley finally goes head-to-head with these opponents, we understand what they are capable of.
Not wanting to overlook the excellent music and scoring, Johnny Strong - a multi-talented musician, composer and singer who works both under his own name and his band / musical identity, Operator, creates an atmospheric score and soundtrack which weaves through and enhances the mood on screen, never crowding or distracting. He did it again on Daylight’s End and it’s a pretty fascinating discipline and art form in itself to break down.
Sinners and Saints is very much an indie film. When I interviewed him in my original Life of Action book, Kaufman explained that he laboured for so long and hard that he actually stopped production and went away to shoot The Hit List with Cuba Gooding, Jr. (for Sony Pictures) before returning and completing the film. What’s sad is that it would probably be even harder today. Not for someone like Kaufman with the elevated stature he’s now reached (directing other indies like One in the Chamber, Daylight’s End and The Brave, plus quality studio sequels like The Marine 4 and Jarhead 3) but for a relative newcomer attempting something similar. This was Kaufman’s second feature after his debut The Prodigy, and it would be a remarkable fifth feature, let alone a second.
It feels increasingly hard for any indie (genre) filmmaker to create a less “fashionable” movie like this, more like the flavour of 1973. It’s like seeking out an old, traditional diner when most people seem to want a hip, exotic street food. Then, even the rare times it does happen, it appears very tricky for the filmmakers to attain the required budget to deliver it as slick as it deserves to be. The Brave starring Louis Mandylor and Armand Assante (Gotti) was released to Netflix in 2019 and, while it carried Kaufman’s trademark ballistic-heavy style, it felt like they were working to a much tighter budget than usual. Therefore, what they pulled off was commendable, but they surely deserve better especially when the results are clearly worthwhile (and make more of an impact with audiences, investors, streaming platforms, etc) . With more budget comes additional shooting days, more resources and crew on set, and extra time spent in post-production - it’s rarely about the fattening of wallets. For anyone well-versed in “DTV” action, a lot has changed even in the past 10-15 years with budgets and the overall look and feel of these films quite different than they once were. It sounds old and grumpy to say “it’s not as good now” but, truthfully, it’s not as good now.
In contrast, when you look back on Sinners and Saints, it’s still holds a late 90’s early 00’s cinematic punch. And perhaps the fact that it was shot over a longer period of time and made in a wholly indie environment adds to this. It allowed the filmmakers to work slow, but get things right, take a reluctant break when they had to (The Hit List) and then return. It might not be an ideal choice, but based on these results I’d rather see Kaufman get the opportunity (and resources) to create a more personal genre movie made like this, rather than hurried through an unforgiving schedule, on time and under budget. The fact is that more time and budget is what’s needed but, in the world of indie action, we know that can be a tall order. It’s not only due to pressures of a changing industry, piracy and other implications, but when talented filmmakers show what they can do on lean budgets, unfortunately it’s also not an incentive for the powers-that-be to correct the course.
In the years since this release, Kaufman shot his aforementioned movies, Johnny Strong has continued being incredibly selective about his roles, with Daylight’s End, the William Fichtner-directed Cold Brook and Invincible, opposite Marko Zaror. There was even talk of a Sinners and Saints 2! Hopefully that can still happen since there’s always a place on screen for a character like Sean Riley, and artists like Kaufman and Strong to hack their way through the trees.
In the meantime, we pay tribute to the old time sensibility and sheer talent displayed in Sinners and Saints. If you haven’t seen this film, it’s widely available on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital platforms (aka Bad Cop in the UK, no comment… he’s not even a bad cop!) and hopefully new cinema fans can continue discovering this diamond in the rough now, and long into the future.