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Friday, December 3, 2010
MOVIE REVIEW
Night Catches Us
Philadelphia Panther,
Running From A Political Past
Jamara Griffin and Anthony Mackie in Tanya Hamilton's drama "Night Catches Us".
Magnolia Pictures
by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
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Friday,
December 3, 2010
Tanya Hamilton's political drama "Night Catches Us" brings very good actors
together but fails to generate the electricity needed to enervate a sleepy,
indistinct film. It opens with archival footage from the 1960s and 70s
Black Panther movement, interspersing it at points throughout, but it's the
central drama, set in 1976 Philadelphia, that is static. The film opened
today in various cities across the U.S.
Remaining loyalists to the political cause avowedly protest the presence of
hostile, unlawful actions by Philadelphia's police in their community.
Marcus (Anthony Mackie) tries to escape the past, holding a secret from his
Panther days. Patricia (Kerry
Washington), also formerly with the movement, soldiers on with her
life, now an attorney and mother. Tensions with the local police also
extend to Marcus, who is persona non grata to ex-Panthers and neighbors alike.
Marcus and Patricia have met before.
"Night Catches Us" has several opportunities to create good drama but save for
two exceptions its scenes generally don't match the passion that the footage or
fictional situations
warrant. The lighted fuses that would likely keep an audience engaged are
never displayed. The film is like a fireworks display that remains
grounded. Some of the peripheral characters written by the director are
not fully realized. One appears to exist solely on the fumes of anger,
with very little else rounding out the character's profile.
I came into this film expecting a solid, riveting drama. Instead, I saw a
muted, slight and sometimes disconnected film. Granted, effective
exchanges between Mr. Mackie and Ms. Washington are the film's lone highlight.
Both deliver fine, controlled and beautiful performances -- but the rest of the
film doesn't match up to the strength of its leads. Mr. Mackie and Ms.
Washington, who appeared together in Spike Lee's 2004 film "She Hate Me", aren't
onscreen here as much as they should be, and there's a lot of cool and warmth
between them when they are. Wendell Pierce (of the phenomenal HBO series
"The Wire") is good as a hectoring, corrupt police detective.
The biggest sin that "Night Catches Us" commits is in its misrepresentation of
the Black Panther Movement. The footage of the organization is used, yes,
but the characters in the story misuse the political agenda of the Panthers as a
platform for violence. Ms. Hamilton may have not been trying to do so
herself -- and there's at least one scene that indicates as much -- but the
organization led by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton (both are seen in the film's
archival footage) stood for economic empowerment of the black community and
self-defense and self-determination of a race of people to chart its own course
unaided, as well as feeding the poor and homeless. Yet "Night Catches Us"
offers little evidence of that mantra within its narrative, seeming to suggest
instead that the Panthers were a violent outfit.
And that's precisely one of the delicate dances involved in big screen political
dramas, whether in a fiction film utilizing real-life events or in a film based
on a true story. Dramatic license is inevitably taken, sometimes to
appalling depths, to the point of gross misrepresentation.
In "Mississippi Burning" (1988) for example, the FBI in Alan Parker's film were
depicted as glory boys and gung-ho standard bearers for the black civil rights
cause in America, when in reality they didn't care whether blacks lived, died or
got social, economic, political justice or civil rights. That film,
nominated for 8 Academy Awards, was based on the book We Are Not Afraid,
about the murders of civil rights workers Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner.
Oliver Stone received fallout for his speculations, aided by several books by
Jim Marrs and Jim Garrison, for "JFK", a well-made film that dazzled audiences
but raised the ire of historians.
"Night Catches Us" neither dazzles nor galvanizes. The film has chances to
set the record straight about a key component of its subject matter, but the
times it depicts have gone too far by. The misrepresentation of the Black
Panthers in the film is one its biggest weakness. Its cast, story and
filmmaker should all have fared better than they do here.
With: Jamie Hector, Amari Cheatom, Ron Simons, Nakia Dillard, Tariq
Trotter, Sadiq Afif.
"Night Catches Us" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association Of America
for language, some sexuality and violence. The film's running time is one hour and
33 minutes.
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