Day Shift, the first film that stunt coordinator and martial artist J.J. Perry has directed, debuted on Netflix on August 12, 2022. Although Perry, who is known for his stunt work on blockbusters like John Wick and F9: The Fate of the Furious, succeeds in differentiating his vampire action comedy from others in the genre, it falls short of the thrilling feats that one may have anticipated from his movie.
Jamie Foxx, who leads the cast as protagonist and vampire hunter Bud Jablonski, truly excels at balancing the act that is divided among action, comedy, satire, horror, and drama. One can’t see anyone other than Foxx accomplishing this accomplishment.
To be fair, Seth, played by Dave Franco, did well to provide some welcome slapstick humor to the movie and worked nicely with Jamie Foxx’s character. The ensemble as a whole contributed to the mood of the movie, and Snoop Dogg and Karla Souza both stood out in their limited roles.
However, the plot, which remained mostly disorganized and underdeveloped, cannot be praised in the same way. Day Shift succeeds well to entertain audiences for a mindless Friday night movie, but don’t expect anything special.
For the full movie review and summary, keep reading.
Day Shift’s storyline is ridiculous and convoluted.
In the San Fernando Valley, Bud Jablonski used to be a blue-collar laborer who cleaned wealthy people’s swimming pools until his employer left. Then he went back to doing his true job, which was hunting vampires and removing their fangs. He could support himself on a good day because to the enormous money his fangs would bring in.
Until he needed $10,000 to stop his family from moving to Florida, he was juggling a topsy-turvy existence with his covert work and a family that included his adorable and witty daughter Paige (Zion Broadnax) and ex-wife Jocelyn (Meagan Good).
His only option was to re-join the “union” of vampire hunters that had expelled him for consistently breaking a number of its rules. Big John (Snoop Dogg), his unconventional buddy and supporter, had the power to get him the position once more.
The only requirement was that a nervous accountant named Seth (Dave Franco) supervise his field operations and report to the union’s head Ralph Seeger (Eric Lange).
In Day Shift, there were discussions about vampire hives, a supreme vampire named El Jefe, black-market sunscreen that allowed vampires to be outside in the sun, five different types of vampires, each categorized by age, and various codes that sounded like gibberish but were actually vampire hunting techniques. However, in the movie, none of them were ultimately significant.
The vampire hunting union’s rules were not the only thing that Bud and Seth discovered to have gaps in them; the movie’s plot was also riddled with them. The vampires would occasionally take too long to kill, making no amount of wooden bullets effective, while other times they would be destroyed by machine gun fire alone. But couldn’t they have been killed with a steel blade?
The formidable vampire queen created by Karla Souza was a badass antagonist who was relatively quickly vanquished. The ancient female vampire from the first scene, who was her daughter, put up a better fight, making the conclusion look hurried and disconnected. Big John, a character played by Snoop Dogg, appeared to have sacrificed himself to slay a legion of vampires, but when he was revived, where were his fangs?
Overall, Day Shift was interesting to watch as long as you left criticism at the door. It seems like the designers had an ambitious plan in the beginning that gradually lost steam and came to a poor conclusion. However, the film’s mindless action and commonplace gore would make for a passable movie night.
In Day Shift, J.J. Perry’s John Wick-calibre action was still missing
Day Shift began with a fight scene in which Foxx displayed his action skills as he defeated an elderly vampire with a ferocious appetite for blood. The opening action scene was a terrific technique to draw people in. It included just the right amount of gore and special effects.
However, as more lackluster vampires charged Jablonski, it become annoying and monotonous to see the same maneuvers repeated. It was repetitive to watch the same stunts in one of the sequences where Bud, Seth, and the Nazarian brothers—all professional vampire hunters—were fighting off a hive of vampires.
Repeated gunshots, vampires being flung about like zombies hit by bullets, bizarre spider walking, and blood-caked powdered faces. What happened to Keanu Reeves’ incredible action choreography from the John Wick movies?
Watch Day Shift on Netflix for a quirky, comedic, video game-inspired vampire hunting adventure, as well as Jamie Foxx’s well-rounded performance in an otherwise uninspired movie.