All Day and A Night: Review by @Kush_Hayes
Joe Robert Cole is a name youre going to be familiar with if not now then definitely in the very near future. How can I make such a bold statement like that? Very simply his last three at bats have been home runs! He is responsible for some of the best episodes in one of the best TV miniseries (The People versus OJ) but he was a writer on the Billion Dollar runaway hit that was Marvels Black Panther. Now Netflix has handed him the keys to tell a story that feels like it might be pretty personal. That story is “All Day and a Night” and its Coles sophomore writer-director combo project and it is leaps and bounds stronger than any sophomore project statistically is.
We meet Jahkor, Jah to his friends which there are few of, as he navigates the streets and service lanes of a residential East Bay neighborhood. And within five minutes of the film with a heavy narrative in the background, Jah murders two adults in their home. Jah, is sentenced and sent to a correctional facility. Now that we know where we end up, we need to find out why we got here. And first we flashback to when Jah is in elementary school and in these scenes he is played by Jalyn Hall. We see character defining moments, where 95% of them end in a no win scenario. If hes not getting beat up at school, hes getting beat up his dad (Jeffrey Wright), or just generally in danger because of random gang life on the streets of Oakland. We meet Jahs two best friends, TQ and Lamark who couldnt be further opposite of each other despite growing up blocks apart from each other.
While the oldest Jah ever gets is maybe 22, we are told his story in different time lines. His childhood. His young adult life. And his new life behind bars. In all three lives, hes forced to engage in violence and ultimately doesnt know how to entirely feel once hes had a moment to calm down. Even his friend TQ, who you could argue tries to raise the bar around Jah, even calls him on it asking “Why is it you always react?” when Jah gets so upset with a coworker that in Jahs mind called for robbing (and probably assaulting) is the correct resolution for the situation that set him off. Lamark also tries to tell Jah that there is life outside Oakland and it might be better if he left for a better life than what hes currently doing. Cole seems to be a master with how to tell a story in flashback as this is what hes done with parts of Black Panther as well as his first Writer/Director project “Lake Amber” in 2011. All three movies involve individuals dealing with the consequences of their fathers actions. And as mentioned above, All Day and a Night feels like the most personal of these three projects. Its great to see what he does with a Netflix Feature Budget, making me wish there was a “behind the scenes featurette” readily available as they film on location in some of Oakland and Sacramentos grittier locations that seem to be a whole other world that the resident of those two citites might not all be aware of.
Jah for his adult life is played by Ashton Sanders, who you know from Moonlight as well as the slept on Captive State from 2019. Sanders never makes you really like his character but you manage to find something redeeming in him where you just want him to make a better choice. Sanders scenes with Jeffrey Rush keep your attention and you wish there more of them in this two hour tale. But Sanders seems to have great chemistry with everyone in this film including Yahya Abdul-Mateen II who I think steals his scenes in the movie.
This movie is a very slow burn. It requires your attention the entire time and shows the viewer a life they never thought existed or at least reminds them that its there still. There is not an ounce of fat on this film and once life gets back to normal in these COVID19 days, I hope it has a life in a mainstream theater.
Five out of Five Blueberries
Rated R for strong violence, pervasive language, drug use and some sexual content/nudity
Photos provided by Netflix
© 2020 TheBosNet Family All Rights Reserved
