Chronicles in film

Bill Withers’ song Just The Two of Us could easily all about Day Shift. Starring Jamie Foxx and Vampire action comedy are like the perfect couple. That maybe on paper, on the small screen are they ‘fang-tastic’ together in Netflix’s latest Original?

Foxx brings his Hollywood A game as Bud Jablonski a hard working blue collar worker He’s a dad who just wants to provide a good life for his quick-witted daughter. His ex-wife Jocelyn (Megan Good) threatens Bud that her and Paige (Zion Broadnax), will be forced to move away plus his daughter needs expensive braces.

Hs mundane San Fernando Valley pool cleaning job is a front for his real source of income, hunting and killing vampires as part of an international Union of vampire hunters.

Getting back into high paying gigs, Bud will have to grovel to get back into the union. As Head honcho Seeger (Eric Lange) is a sucker for sticking all laws and rules, something Bud was good at doing. Bud gets help old friend and Union star Vampire Hunter Big John Elliott (Snoop Dog).

The film kicks off with Bud cleaning a pool. He has been staking a neighbour and quickly learn about Bud’s true job. When he inadvertently kills the ‘wrong vampire’, someone very close to vampire elder Audrey (Karla Souza).

If Mike Lowry (Will Smith) of Bad Boys finds himself in Dusk Till Dawn scenario. Violent, gory and ridiculously over the top silliness. The action scenes are intense, all thanks to the director, JJ Perry. This is Perry’s feature debut after years of being a stunt man supervisor (Fast and Furious 9, John Wick 2). The Body count is very high and the vampires are killed in many ways from decapitation to wooden bullets. Ironically Ice-T’s metal group Body Count song ‘body counts In The House’ is the sounds when Bud and Seth (Dave Franco) hit a Vampire Hive.

Foxx and Franco do have a fairly solid on screen chemistry, plays like a Buddy film of sorts. Bud becomes a mentor for Seth the Union rep there to try get Bud break a rule to throw him out for good. Seth is cringe worthy, and at the same time Franco hams it up big style, scared every moment on the job, anxiety not being behind the desk. The pair provide Day Shift some it’s funniest moments, they also give some of it’s humour that falls fall on its face. Snoop Dog is suave and Charismatic as Big John Elliott, dawning cowboy boots and hat loved by the ladies, loathed by the undead.

Day Shift is not perfect. The script is underwritten with several characters development’s full of bullet holes from Big John’s Big Bertha gun. Bud’s neighbour Heather ( Natasha Liu Bordizzo ) despite having a important part to play in the final part of the film. The action is slick tense, just a shame there is very few memorable moments to make this a fang-tastic film.

★★★