Steinesongo Too many fans seem to be blown away

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Bessie Smyth Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

dick-807-576174 For those who say where are the black dramas look no further.I enjoyed this movie from beginning to end and recommend it to anyone who loves quality story telling and great acting.Anthony Mackie and Kerry Washington give awesome performances and the story is so deep and engorging you can't help but be sucked in. I always find it amazing that quality films such as this have a hard time seeing the light of day (or moonlight for that matter)even though we are inundated with channels through our various cable/satellite packages. Is it a conspiracy? I'll leave that up to people smarter than me, all I know is this is a terrific movie and a must see. Dick-SmoothDrama radio

paulkirk-1 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.

Matthew Stechel 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.

Darnell Lamont Walker There's a beauty that lies in these shots, I kept saying to myself as I watched Night Catches Us. Simplistically, yet wonderfully told, is a story we have no seen yet. A truth that existed in 1976, not only in Philadelphia, but in Detroit, Chicago, Oakland, New York City and many other cities and towns across the country. This truth told us that, while the panthers were growing larger and simultaneously being eradicated all across the country, there were those who had non-romanticized lives outside of their affiliation with the party. While Mario Van Peeble's 1995 version of this truth was indeed true, we fell in love with the party, not with the individuals. We knew the workings of "the pig" and the maneuvers of the Panthers. Tanya Hamilton brings us to a neighborhood, to a house, to a family that wakes up, breathes and lives because they have to do these things to keep moving. Their sub story is their involvement with the Black Panther Party. Their true story is the one we don't see, but it's told to us in ways only a great filmmaker can tell it: between the lines, between the scenes. It lies in the perfect chemistry between Marcus (Anthony Mackie) and Patty (Kerry Washington). Rarely do we get lost in characters, forgetting the actor, and this was one of those rare occasions, and credit must be given to all for such a feat. These were real lives we watched on screen, real emotions, real situations, realness. There was a raw love being shown that hasn't existed since Love Jones (Written and Directed by Theodore Witcher). I would be extraordinarily surprised if Tanya Hamilton, the writer and director, was not an admirer of Charles Burnett, writer and director of Killer of Sheep. I highly recommend this film and would love to one day work with Tanya Hamilton, the creative genius.