On August 12, a new vampire action movie “Day Shift” was released on Netflix. It stars Jamie Foxx, Dave Franco and Snoop Dogg, and is directed by former actor and stunt coordinator JJ Perry. We have already watched this film and are ready to share our impressions.
“Day shift” / Day Shift
Genre fiction, fantasy, action, comedy, horror
Directed by JJ Perry
Starring Jamie Foxx, Dave Franco, Snoop Dogg, Carla Sousa, Meagan Good, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Oliver Mazzucci
Netflix release
Release year 2022
IMDb site
Bud Jablonski (Jamie Foxx) lives in Los Angeles and hunts vampires. He hides his work from the family, so his wife Joycelyn (Meagan Good) lives separately, and Bud is left with only communication with his eight-year-old daughter Paige (Zion Broadnax). But even this can be taken away from the hero, because the ex decides to move to Florida in search of a better life. To prevent this from happening, you need to get ten thousand dollars in a week. Bad needs money fast, so he turns to the secretive Union, a powerful and bureaucratic organization of vampire hunters. There he is given as a partner an “office rat” named Seth (Dave Franco). The boy does not want to work “in the field”, he is afraid of weapons and vampires, but he knows more about bloodsuckers than anyone. Together, Bud and Seth not only successfully hunt the fangs, but also get into a very dangerous game with the ancient vampire Audrey (Carla Sousa).
Bad Jablonski hides his unusual profession by cleaning swimming pools. In addition to him, there are other hunters in the City of Angels who make a living by killing various species of toothfish. They are paid for extracted vampire fangs, which are obtained through official sources or with the help of various shady dealers.
Screenwriters Shay Hatten and Tyler Tice must have tried to think through the detailed mythology of the movie and to work more deeply into the centuries-old history of the war between humans and bloodsuckers. In fact, they only came up with a chaotic, boring and confusing explanation of the intricate hierarchy of vampires. The viewer remembers almost nothing, so until the end of the film it is not clear who is a vampire, who is dying from what and why.
It is only clear that local ghouls are afraid of sunlight, garlic, wooden stakes, holy water and silver, and also, according to the classics, do not reflect in a mirror. But there are many types of them here: some survive even under the sun, others are able to recover with a severed head, others are flexible like circus performers, others look like zombies, and so on.
All this variety of ghouls makes it very difficult to follow the story. True, the plot of “Day Shift” is very superficial, and the actions of the characters are illogical and inconsistent. Already in the middle of the film, the main villain could easily kill Bud, but does not do it, and her motives are not explained at all. The hero is not touched at the end either, talking only about the fact that “it is still early”, but why and what plans the story has for him, the story never reveals.
Being distracted by the classification of vampires interferes not with immersion in the universe, but with catching a lot of quite good, albeit often rude, jokes. The Day Shift makes fun of the vampire genre and many popular movies. There are references to Twilight and Blade and some great zombie trailers are thrown in as well. The picture is full of black humor, but there are also more primitive “sorting” jokes.
The second, and last, advantage of “Day Shift” is inventive and well-staged combat scenes. Hand-to-hand combat, shooting and chases are done at the highest level. In everything, you can feel the hand of a professional, which JJ Perry filled in the filming of “John Wick 2” and “Fast and Furious 9”.
Instead, “Day Shift” cannot boast of high-quality acting by the actors. Jamie Foxx and Dave Franco do everything right, but the film doesn’t seem to challenge their acting talent. They just do their job and get paid for it. Snoop Dogg doesn’t act at all, only shows himself in the frame, and the main villain, performed by Carla Sousa, appears as a pale parody of Deacon Frost and Jared Nomak from the first two parts of “Blade”.
Despite the many different types of vampires, they play the role of cannon fodder for a spectacular picture. The villains attack the heroes like orcs attack the armed forces, overwhelm them with numbers and die for the sake of a spectacular shot. In the entire film, only a few Ancient Dead have the same power as humans. Although the audience is constantly told about the superiority of ghouls over humanity, which once again shows the absurdity and illogicality of the scenario.
Pros: excellent action and fighting scenes, good graphics, funny mockery of the genre of vampire films Cons: illogical and loopy script, confusing and not fully fleshed out ghoul mythology, unclear actions of the main characters at key points in the story, too weak vampires, created only for spectacular battle scenes Conclusion:
“Day Shift” is a one-off summer blockbuster with excellent action and good humor. The picture does a good job of vampiric themes and is tough on the genre in general, but it itself sins with a leaky plot and illogical actions of the heroes. This is a silly and funny fantasy action movie worth watching if you have a lot of free time and like vampire movies. If all this is not about you, then it is better to bypass “Day Shift” on the side. There are much more interesting films in the Netflix library
