Night Catches Us takes place during the mid-‘70s in Philadelphia. The protagonist, Marcus (Anthony Mackie), is an ex-Black Panther, who comes back to town for his father’s funeral and is targeted by other ex-Panthers because he ratted out the cop-killing husband of Patricia (Kerry Washington), the only woman in the neighborhood who apparently likes him.
Marcus strikes up a rapport with Patricia’s daughter, filling in the role of the father he may or may not have had killed, and it’s not too long before we learn that the reason for Marcus’s stay is his deep passion for Patricia.
Patricia also plays surrogate mother to Jimmy (Amari Cheatom), a sort of street tough who’s had several run-ins with the police, some of them his fault, but mostly because the white police have a habit of harassing the neighborhood and Jimmy never knows when to keep his mouth shut. Jimmy idolizes Marcus’s former life as a Panther and is quickly heading down that same road that Marcus now regrets taking.
But Night’s ultimately not as much about the Panthers as it is about Marcus choosing not to repeat his past mistakes and find a better life through forging relationships instead of severing them. Jimmy’s the counterpoint, and his character works well at explaining why the life of militantism in the late ‘60s and ‘70s was so seductive—the police were brutes, and for a lot of angry young men, fighting back seemed like the only response.
