How does a film like this wind up with a little 5.8 rating while glossy pablum like Prometheus gets a 7.8? While 'Night Catches Us' does have a few pacing problems and plays a bit anti-climactic in places, it is a layered emotional drama with excellent performances. I just finished watching the DVD and was amazed it didn't get higher critical response. I was also surprised by some of the deleted scenes and wondered why they had been cut from the film. For example, the confrontation between Marcus and Jimmy, the young wanna-be revolutionary, takes place in the house in the film. But in the deleted scenes, there is a much better and more detailed version of the same exchange where Marcus goes deeper into the history of the Panthers. Maybe continuity made them scrap that version, but it was a stronger scene. Anyway, catch this one on DVD. (Resubmitting this review after deleting it by accident)

I saw one review on this twisted history movie and had to say something. I lived in this era, I saw the Black Panthers kill a lot of people.I lived in Oakland I saw them burning buildings for no reason except they didn't like the school or the people. I saw them beating up teachers who were trying to help them. The only people killed by these so called 'civilians' were other civilians. The hate was incredible, Oakland turned from a thriving metropolis to a town of empty stores, with newspapers flying in the streets. My whole family lived there my Grandparents were born there and my folks, the town was decent it was full of hard working people. Then the haters moved in and started destroying everything. The city did not help they torn down the Victorian homes that were solid and built slums that had rats within 30 days of occupation because the garbage was everywhere. I saw a whole city implode by shooting and gangs the panthers were just one of many; they were just more talked about than the rest. Anyone who thinks the government was wrong helping the Vietnamese people get away from communist aggression didn't hear the cries for help from them when their cities were destroyed and the people killed in the thousands. We lost only because Congress wouldn't let the military do their job and complete their mission. I know many people from south east Asia that would love to go back to their country if they could worship the way they wanted to without being harassed by the communist regime. Communism isn't pretty! people also forget that the era was full of drugs and immorality it wasn't good and didn't do anything to advance civilization in fact I think it went back a few steps! Docudramas are the bargain basement of movies they take 10 percent real history and 90 percent baloney and everyone thinks it really happened that way! Don't waste your time!

I'd encourage anyone interested in watching good acting and film-making to watch "Night Catches Us".The movie is set in 1976, in Philadelphia, and it is not "Rocky's" S. Philadelphia. The main characters have all had experience/involvement in the Black Panther movement, and the movie cuts a path through the complex feelings and realities that have evolved since they were once involved with it.It's one of those films that revolves around a core group of characters who've all turned into somewhat different people from when they first knew each other. The dynamic is even more intense because each of the main characters has a tie-in to someone who was obviously a leader or loved one -- indeed it was his death years earlier that led the group to disperse.I'm kinda bummed that awards seasons might be passing by this gem. Kerry Washington is great, but it's Anthony Mackie's film; he has an intensity and dignity. No overwrought acting.

Somewhat dreary film about a guy coming to his hometown after his father's death after several years of being banished for snitching on the local black panther organization (of which he was a member.) While it'd be nice to report that it was an original and daring film about a subculture that few films are ever made about,(and a nicely textured one at that) the events and drama that happen during the film for the most part are pretty run of the mill standard issue guy reconnects with long lost love of his life while revisiting old stomping grounds melodrama.While the idea of several ex black panther party members trying to move on with their lives is an intriguing one, and one that is handled with a great deal of technical skill by the director...the screenplay doesn't really seem to develop many of the characters. If you think i'm wrong, just keep in mind that at the end of the film we don't know anything more about the Anthony mackie character then we did at the beginning. When he suddenly announces he has to leave....the announcement only made me realize that i don't know where he's going back to, only that the events of the past 80 minutes have if anything made him even a stronger believer in his need to escape his old hometown. I suppose that the town's definition of him is the point of the screenplay---what little you learn about him, you learn via his actions when confronted with danger, or you learn via exposition provided by the other characters...but at the end of the film the only thing you really know about him is that his desire to escape the townspeople's perceived image of him--which is something that you kind of grasp within the first 15 or 20 minutes when you see how his brother treats him, or how the other people in the film treat him at first sight. The need for Mackie to escape the town and start over or he'll end up in as dangerous a situation as Kerry Washington's brother did is a good jumping off point but i'm not sure if him just reaffirming his position on that stance is as good an ending as could've been written for his character.However Mackie is at least well defined compared to the various other characters appearing here, the more screen time Kerry Washington's brother gets, the less sympathetic (or original) he comes off as. Played as a shell shocked survivor defined by the amount of damage inflicted on him by his living in the town...he's still just a wee bit unbalanced and messed up too ever really register as a fully fleshed out character...he's fed up to here with the way the white cops treat him...but did he ever not feel fed up? His one dimensional character is hard to muster up the needed compassion for which kinda takes the sting out of what ultimately ends up happening to him. With the amount of screen time that the film dedicates to him and his troubled mind, i kind of wished that once again the film would leave him in a far more interesting place or at least do more with him once his behavior finally escalated into the kind of violence that couldn't be glossed over. What happens to him is a cliché, and one that should've been made more interesting to watch. Meanwhile if Mackie is the "you can't go home again" character then Kerry Washington's brother is the stock unstable loose cannon character...then Kerry Washington's character at least remains an interesting bedrock upon which the other two characters revolve around. Belivably torn between her need to stay true to her roots in the town and the need to start over (if not for herself then for her daughter)her initial attempts to do both at the same time make her somewhat interesting , but again the more the screenplay has her relating why she has the need to stay in Philly...the less believable her reasons become. Anthony Mackie and Kerry Washington as the love of his life while both offering fine restrained performances (both actors nicely underplay the anger both characters feel at their circumstances.) also have definite screen chemistry as well....and that chemistry is what ultimately keeps the film from going completely off the tracks in terms of sustaining your interest in the outcome of the story. Both actors bring a lot of good will and much likability to the characters they're playing. It says a lot about how much the 2 actors keep the film watchable and reasonably involving that in spite of weaknesses in the story, and a somewhat sluggish pacing you do root for the two of them to make it through the events of the film and end up together happily ever after--but not as much as you should be.