All Day and a Night

As ALL DAY AND A NIGHT opens, Jahkor Abraham Lincoln (Ashton Sanders as an adult) commits a double murder and is sent to prison. The movie then uses flashbacks and flashforwards to trace the pervasive violence in his past -- as a child, a teen, and a young adult -- that led to his incarceration. Idealism as a boy and teen protects Jahkor for a time. But cruelty, racial tension, and despair are constant forces in the evolution of this thoughtful little boy on his way to the gangster life. His father J.D. (Jeffrey Wright) is a drug addict and felon, in and out of prison. One best friend T.Q. (Isaiah John) has ambition and no conscience. Lamark (Christopher Meyer), another close friend, resists only to find that salvation eludes him anyway. As events escalate, opportunities disappear, and gang warfare sets him up for a major betrayal, Jahkor appears to surrender to the savagery in the streets.