Night Shift was better. A lot better. And it gave us Michael Keaton. Day Shift trotted out Dave Franco as comic relief, which is neither a new nor a terrific idea. And Jamie Foxx paced the film as a badass … again neither a new nor a terrific idea (although a better idea than Dave Franco, comic relief). Day Shift is a movie about vampires in the San Fernando Valley. Gag me with an incisor.
In its way pathetic way, Day Shift made a legitimate attempt at redefining the mythology of vampires: There are five types of vampires (ummmm, lemme see if I can name ’em: Vladdies, Lestats, Choculas, Abaci, and Home Plates), Vampires can now exist is sunlight, even SoCal sunlight (!), so long as they have strong enough spf protection. There’s also a union for the Van Helsings of metropolitan El Lay. And it’s not only a union; it’s an employer paying top $ for each unique dental pattern.
Ok, Ok. Who is paying people to kill vampires? Seriously, who? The government? Angel donors? Magic Johnson? Who? There’s a ton of bureaucracy in this film … like health care level bureaucracy. That doesn’t come cheap. Who cares enough to invest $$$$$ in slaying? I saw seven season of “Buffy.” She did SoCal a solid every week and never got paid squat.
Bud Jablonski (Foxx) is our hero, the Dirty Harry of vampire killing. He’s been booted from both the union and a marriage. It’s hard to know his exact psychology, but I’d guess that he takes out his frustrations on the undead. When his ex-wife threatens to lead and take their daughter with her to a place of quality education and affordable dental care, Florida (HA!), Bud decides it’s time to bury the hatchet in several more vampire skulls and try and make one more go at unionizing for bigger paydays.
This is … not a great plot. It gets worse when his union rep (Eric Lange) agrees to give Bud one more shot but then attaches a desk jockey (Franco) to Bud’s tail looking for specific evidence of Bud breaking the rules so that … he can be fired? Well, this just doesn’t make any sense at all, does it? You have the power not to hire him. You don’t want to. So don’t. Really not a difficult thing. What kind of employer says, “well, we gave you eight chances at this job and each time you proved you
couldn’t handle it, so we fired you” and then not only re-hires the person, but spends company resources looking for evidence to fire the employee again?
The big joke is that Seth (Franco) pisses himself every time he encounters a vampire. Or is the joke that Snoop Dogg is the Tom Brady of vampire hunters? Actually, what strikes me most about Day Shift is that it’s a film that couldn’t decide whether or not it was action or drama or comedy or horror. As it couldn’t decide, it kinda underperformed at all four. To illustrate, the film opens with a wonderful extended fight scene between Bud and a 90-year-woman [read: vampire]. It takes him literally five full minutes to put her down.
Oh, so this is a story where vampires are difficult to kill. I see. For the rest of the movie, however, vampires may as well be storm troopers or orcs in Lord of the Rings … a sword here, a shot there, NEXT! It’s like ordering corpses from a deli counter. So make up your mind, film, are vampires easy to kill or hard? And do we take this seriously or not? I mean, on the one hand there’s Dave Franco pissing himself and Snoop Dogg, vampire slayer, and on the other hand there’s a kidnapped wife and daughter and more beheadings –both good and bad- than I can count. Beheadings aren’t comic. Kidnappings aren’t comic. And the bad union treatment … is this an anti-union film? No, the handling is too sloppy. Some of the action sequences were legitimately entertaining. I cannot, however, claim such about most of the film. I like Jamie Foxx, but I don’t know where his career is going at this point; I suspect neither does his agent.
♪Your butt’s splintered
Your skin is white
Can’t show yourself
In broad daylight
I’m telling you
Now let’s be real
I ain’t gonna be
A happy meal
I’m giving you
To the count of three
To show your fangs
Or I’ll call Buffy
I’m telling you
Go get lost
Don’t push me more
Or I’ll get cross
When they say you live forever
You know that just ain’t true
Cuz I’m not making fences
When I pound a stake or two
You know I’m Blade I’m Blade (Really Really Blade)
You know I’m Blade I’m Blade (Really Really Blade)
It’s a longsword parade (Really Really Blade)
And the vamp has to answer right now
Before I behead the lot
Who’s Blade? ♫
Rated R, 113 Minutes
Director: J.J. Perry
Writer: Tyler Tice, Shay Hatten
Genre: Hmmm, well what did it feel like to you? Let’s go with that
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: How much do you love Snoop Dogg?
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: How much do you love Dave Franco?
♪ Parody Inspired by “Bad”
