All Day And A Night - Yahya Abdul-Mateen II - Photo Credit: Netflix / Matt Kennedy
Here are three reasons you should watch the latest Netflix movie All Day And a Night from Black Panther co-writer Joe Robert Cole.
While theaters are empty, Netflix continues to release interesting, thoughtful films at a rapid pace. All Day And a Night features a talented assortment of people telling the cruel, punishing story of a young boy who is pushed into a life of violent crime in Oakland, California, by his father and friends.
The film is directed by Joe Robert Cole (Black Panther co-writer) and stars Ashton Sanders (Moonlight), Jeffrey Wright (Westworld) and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Watchmen). It follows Jahkor (Sanders) as he looks back on the life that led to him being behind bars, the regrets and strokes of bad luck as well as the mistakes and failures.
All Day And a Night winds through circumstances that very much paint the picture that Jahkor was helpless in his own life, despite the fact that he gives in to the temptation of crime to make money and gain power. Stuffed with great performances and a whizzing script, it really works, though it’s considerably darker than most Netflix fare.
Read on below for three reasons you should watch All Day And a Night.
It says all the things Black Panther might have wanted to about Oakland
Add All Day to the growing anthology of Oakland movies including, among others, Fruitvale Station, Sorry to Bother You and of course Black Panther. The Marvel movie is particularly noteworthy because Cole worked on both films. The portions of Black Panther set in Oakland match the tone of Cole’s directorial debut, with a helplessness and dog-eat-dog despair that is pervasive.
Jahkor struggles to navigate the streets of Oakland in a way that makes sense to him. He’s told that mugging folks is something you do on the way to a place, but is scared when his friend TQ gives in to violence far more easily than Jahkor is able to. Jahkor swears off drugs and gangs after seeing the number they do on his father, JD (Wright), but ends up back in the middle of all of it when school and music lead to dead ends for him. Despite a mother who is supportive and doing well for herself, Jahkor pushes people away because of the internal conflict he cannot overcome.
The connective tissue of these recent Oakland stories is that characters cannot overcome their means. LaKeith Stanfield’s Cassius Green leads a labor revolt centered around a racial masquerade in order to wield any sort of influence in his workplace. Killmonger tries to take back the wealth and strength of Wakanda in order to exact revenge on the folks who used social inequity as a weapon when he was growing up in Oakland.
Like them, Jahkor finds suffering around every corner and despite his best intentions, cannot rise above the limitations of his social and economic burden.
Ashton Sanders is subtle and powerful
If you saw Moonlight, you’ll remember Sanders from part two, the shortest portion of the film but also the section in which we see Chiron begin to shed the quiet kid identity and lash out at his mother and the aggressive bullies at school. Chiron allows himself to begin to feel for the first time, becomes closer with his sexuality, and builds up stronger walls around the new parts of himself that he’s found. The groundwork is laid for the hard villain we’ll find in part three.
Sanders brings much of the same sensitivity and explosiveness to All Day. While he can give a performance in one scene that builds anxiety in the audience that he might be about to hurt someone, the next scene brings a more tender and relatable version of Sanders. After committing the crime that lands him in prison, Sanders settles in to watch TV with his girlfriend, finally comfortable for the first time in the entire film. Early on in his relationship with the man who will hire Jahkor to commit the crime, Sanders is open, yearning for the approval of the man. By the time he becomes a hired hand for the man, Stunna (Mateen), it’s all about putting up a front of viciousness.
Sanders has always been able to do both of these things, but rarely given the runway to display that range.
A different side of Yahya Abdul-Mateen after Watchmen
In Watchmen, Mateen was a trepidatious husband and then a powerful hero. The character was understood by his patience and poise. He was a standout of the show, but it wasn’t the type of performance that really gives you an idea of what’s next for the actor.
All Day lays the roadmap for what Mateen can do on-screen. Mateen is the biggest, most confident presence in any scene he enters, and that much has been true in both performances. But in All Day, Mateen is an antagonist, leading one side of a turf war that ultimately envelopes Jahkor. The same poise that carried Watchmen allows Mateen to grab hold of his scenes in All Day by the neck and take control of everything going on.
While Mateen still only gets a handful of moments in All Day, it’s a completely different side that will leave audiences thrilled for what’s next.
All Day and a Night is currently streaming on Netflix.
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May 09, 2020 at 01:50AM
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3 reasons you should watch All Day and a Night on Netflix - FanSided
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