Critic Reviews

All Day and a Night is made with empathy and skill, but it’s as clear-eyed and remorseless as a news report.

All Day and a Night offers renewed hope for Wright acolytes, all while reaffirming a new star in Sanders.

Cole’s overarching theme of time drifting, folding inward and ultimately dooming the fathers, sons, mothers and daughters of All Day and a Night is hugely aided by the manner in which he frames these ideas visually.

As Jahkor resists his father and then begins to make a tentative connection, Sanders and Wright let us feel the weight of generations — and All Day and a Night, which began in a blast of gunfire, ends as a sad but touching lament.

A nervy, deeply felt drama that gets a little lost on its winding path to redemption but still finds a way home.

Choice, for many, is an illusion. This message repeats itself throughout the film, and while at times it feels clumsy, it is never tedious. Sanders especially shines among a formidable cast, and in his portrayal, excellently reflects on the herculean task his character faces.

The beats of this story are easy enough to recognize, which is not to say that they’re formulaic. Sanders’ quietly mesmerizing performance refuses to let anyone cast Jahkor as either victim or villain, instead locating a tricky middle ground.

This is a grim, at times lurid tale with hard observations about growing up poor, Black, and male in America — about the cycles of defeat that can land multiple generations in prison — and many of the details have the sting of the rap songs that permeate the soundtrack. Elsewhere, however, All Day and a Night plays like an urban crime thriller made with more earnestness than style.

All Day and a Night is a weightier alternative to the average Netflix original and while imperfectly realised and scrappily plotted at times, it’s another promising sign that, away from the easy-to-digest content, there’s room on the platform for much much more.

There’s a fine line between resilience and false hope, and All Day and a Night walks it with purpose even when it’s tripping over itself.