DIRECTOR: J.J. Perry
CAST: Jamie Foxx, Dave Franco, Snoop Dogg, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Scott Adkins, Steve Howey, Meagan Good, Karla Souza, Oliver Masucci, Eric Lange, Peter Stormare, Zion Broadnax
RUNNING TIME: 114 mins
CERTIFICATE: 18
BASICALLY…: A blue collar worker (Foxx) secretly makes a living as a vampire hunter…
NOW FOR THE REVIEW…
After spending $200 million on an action blockbuster like The Gray Man only for it to be one of the most middle-of-the-road movies of the year, Netflix is thankfully going back to basics (sort of) with an action blockbuster that’s not only half the cost, but actually has more promise as a lasting franchise than the one with the heavier price tag (and yes, I’m aware of the Gray Man sequel and spin-off that’s already been announced, but it’s only because they were obligated to after all that incessant hype).
Day Shift, the debut feature for former stuntman turned director J.J. Perry, is a daft but consistently entertaining action-horror that’s essentially Blade crossed with Men in Black, with the action choreography of John Wick and the tongue-in-cheek attitude of the Jump Street movies, all put into the same blender. Does it completely work? Absolutely not, but how can you complain about a movie where Jamie Foxx goes full Van Helsing by decapitating and shotgunning vampires left and right?
Foxx plays Bud Jablonski, a divorced father whose dead-end job as a pool cleaner in the San Fernando Valley is actually a cover for his real profession: he’s a vampire hunter, who tracks down and kills blood-suckers (via the usual methods, from wooden stakes to silver-laced weapons), extracts their fangs, and then trades them in for a hefty reward. However, when his ex-wife Jocelyn (Meagan Good) intends to move to Florida with their daughter Paige (Zion Broadnax), Bud is desperate for enough money to convince them to stay, so he is forced to turn to the underground vampire hunting league he once belonged to for a reasonably-paid day shift, where he is paired with desk employee Seth (Dave Franco) for a sunlit trek across LA hunting down sects of vampires. However, when Bud crosses vengeful vampire leader Audrey (Karla Souza), he finds himself, his family, and his new friends in a whole heap of danger.
It’s a movie that knows exactly what it is, and embraces that as much as it can, with tons of gruesome violence inflicted upon supernatural creatures, but a light-ish comedic tone to offset the constant gore. As a debut director, Perry does a fine enough job balancing the kinetic energy of the action with a simple plot that is carried by the easy charisma and chemistry of its performers. Jamie Foxx is having tons of fun here, and he’s a lively presence who’s easy to root for, and enjoyable supporting turns by Dave Franco, Scott Adkins as one-half of a fierce vampire-hunting brother duo (and gets to show off some killer moves in a standout sequence), and Snoop Dogg as a cowboy hat-wearing, chain gun-firing – and, naturally, massive doobie-smoking – hunter, also bring plenty of irreverent charm to the screen. Most of all, though, Perry incorporates some pretty strong action that’s a mix of CG trickery and practical contortionism which could only come from the mind of a former stuntperson. Whether it’s a sun-drenched car chase (parts of which surely use the same locations as similar sequences in Terminator 2: Judgement Day), or a massive indoor brawl with endless blood-suckers, Perry shows an impressive eye for awesome angles, creative kills, and tightknit camerawork that allows the audience full comfortable access to everything that’s happening in front of them.
Of course, it’s a premise that requires a ton of the old suspension of disbelief in order to fully accept every little detail that the movie throws at you (sometimes in long-winded exposition that perhaps could have been incorporated better into the dialogue), but it isn’t that hard to buy into this world because you’re having a fun enough time with these characters and the consistent action that, like the first John Wick, you’re at the very least vaguely curious to learn more about it. Plot-wise, though, it does settle into familiar territory around the time it breaks into the third act, and it does things which even The Gray Man did not that long ago, which does make it easy to predict as to what is going to be the eventual outcome of this whole affair. It isn’t the kind of film that sets out to be subversive with its plotting, though, and again is perfectly comfortable being exactly the kind of B-movie action-horror that it was perhaps pitched as, albeit with some fun world-building exercises (and even a background joke referencing the infamous Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) to offer potential growth should there indeed be follow-ups to this.
While it’s hardly going to change the blockbuster atmosphere, and probably not even fix Netflix’s current problems with dwindling subscriber numbers, Day Shift is a fun and entertaining piece of escapism that, if you’ll excuse the vampire pun, you can easily sink your teeth into.
SO, TO SUM UP…
Day Shift is a consistently entertaining action-horror that embraces its daft vampire-hunting premise as much as it can, with support from a charismatic cast and some impeccably executed action sequences, though it inevitably falls into familiar territory that threatens to undo the fun kinetic energy it’s been building up from the very beginning.
