Anthony Mackie, Kerry Washington Nearly Save ‘Night Catches Us’

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Rating: 3.0/5.0

CHICAGO – “They’re all around us. Ghosts. They’re everywhere.” People don’t talk like that. Especially kids. Especially not after a major revelation about their dad. It just doesn’t feel real. And that’s the problem with “Night Catches Us,” a well-intentioned drama with strong performances that somehow can’t find the realism at the heart of its story. Anthony Mackie and Kerry Washington nearly rescue the piece but it just doesn’t come together into anything memorable enough to recommend.

“Night Catches Us” is one of those films that yet again prove the dictum that movies are not the sum of their parts. If you pull apart “Night Catches Us,” there are elements that work including a strong cast led by two of the best young actors working today, a refreshingly lyrical directorial style, and great music supervision by The Roots. But the script never finds its footing, caught between personal stories and sociopolitical statements. It’s far from a mess of a film but one that never connects the dots.

Night Catches Us
Photo credit: Sony Pictures

In 1976, a few years after the peak of the Black Power movement but at a time when racial tension was still high and wounds still fresh, former Black Panther Marcus (Anthony Mackie) returns home to Philadelphia after the death of his father. Marcus clearly comes with some baggage of history as the Panthers still in his hometown look at him as a snitch and openly antagonize him for his actions in the death of one of their own. The widow of the dead man, Patricia (Kerry Washington) doesn’t hold the same negative feelings for Marcus but clearly sees him as a reminder of a past that she’d like to bury. There are feelings between Marcus and Patricia that make leaving the past behind even harder to do.

Of course, we never fully leave the past behind, especially when the issues that inspired the movement in the first place are still in place. So, while Tanya Hamilton tells the story of Marcus and Patricia handling their personal issues, the racial tension in Philadelphia continues to simmer and leads to a violent climax.

When “Night Catches Us” focuses purely on the story of Marcus and Patricia moving from one phase of their lives into another, it works. These two have a remarkably complex dynamic, one that clearly includes both pain and passion, and Washington and Mackie are typically excellent. Mackie has been a scene-stealer for years, delivering great supporting performances in “Half Nelson” and “The Hurt Locker” and Washington never fails to give a dynamic performance. They’re the reason to see “Night Catches Us.”

Night Catches Us
Photo credit: Magnolia

The problems are in the larger canvas of the piece and Hamilton’s urges to move away from the heart of the characters into poetic dialogue like mentioned in the first paragraph of this review. We meet several supporting characters in “Night Catches Us,” all played by talented actors including two veterans of “The Wire” (Wendell Pierce, Jamie Hector), but none of them feel genuine. We don’t get under the skin of the community like we need to for this piece to fully work and it poisons the realism found in Mackie and Washington’s performances.

I believed the story of Marcus and Patricia but never the world in which it was set. Hamilton goes for that amazingly-difficult balance of lyricism and realism and doesn’t quite nail either. Movies like “Night Catches Us” are a tough balancing act of history and character-driven drama and while I totally respect Hamilton for trying something that challenging, the results are mixed at best.

I’m a sucker for films that attempt to tell personal stories against political backdrops, but “Night Catches Us” is a near-miss. Tanya Hamilton definitely shows promise in that most of the problems in the film boil down to her trying to ambition that will certainly click in the future — trying to do a bit too much with one film by mixing the personal & political and the poetic & the real (and consequently not doing enough of any of it). And Mackie and Washington don’t diminish their status as two of their generation’s best. But this “Night” just isn’t a very memorable one.

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com