All Day and a Night Parent Guide

Jahkor (Ashton Sanders) has lived his life on the wrong side of the law. Growing up in Oakland, his childhood was comprised of dangerous fights in school, beatings from his gang-affiliated father, JD (Jeffrey Wright), and constant exposure to gangs. As an adult with a criminal record and no higher education, his options for making money are limited- the way he sees it, he can either make it pro with his burgeoning rap career, or he can start working for Big Stunna (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II). To complicate matters, his girlfriend Shantaye (Shakira Ja-nai Paye) is pregnant. Settling for the gang, Jahkor is quickly picked up on serious charges, and spends his time in prison thinking back on his life.

As an absurdly privileged white guy, I’m very conscious that a lot of my opinions on movies like this lack the personal context that would make them really matter. So take almost anything I say here with a whole heap of salt.

The movie is a little slow at times, but it has a very determined heart. The focus is very much on Jahkor’s personal story, of which all the gang drama and violence is only a part. This is billed as a drama - not a crime drama. If you compare it with a real “gang” movie, take something like Goodfellas for example, there is significantly less violence. That’s because All Day and a Night is a personal story and doesn’t need to gin that up with gore to keep an audience.

But even without that extra gore, this movie has more than enough content concerns to scare off a lot of viewers. One hundred and thirty uses of the sexual expletive in 121 minutes is an achievement, although not a terribly positive one. In the film’s defense, that is reasonably accurate dialogue for gang members, not that this makes the movie any more approachable. In addition to the general carpet bombing of “f-words”, near constant use of scatological profanity and racial slurs make sure that no scene is free of profanity. Crude sexual language and depictions make this almost completely unsuitable for most viewers.

If you can stomach the negative content, there is a lot here that’s worth thinking about. Jahkor’s situation is genuinely tragic, and while he makes some dubious choices, his options were limited from the start. The exploration of his complex relationship with his father is fascinating, and the non-linear nature of the story gives the audience a chance to see its evolution more clearly. All Day and a Night is a movie I’d love to recommend to people – if only it weren’t so completely unsuitable for family audiences.