Day Shift review: Jamie Foxx's vampire flick is another (un)dead-on-arrival Netflix original

JJ Perry cut his teeth as a stuntman and now sinks them into directing his first feature Day Shift . As Chad Stahelski (John Wick), David Leitch (Atomic Blonde, Bullet Train) and Sam Hargrave ( Extraction ) have done in the recent past, Perry is the latest to rise up the ranks. And he brings some of his action expertise and vampire knowhow from working on Ultraviolet and Underworld Awakening to Netflix’s new bloodbath. You would think this should give him a leg up on the current of the streaming giant’s usual mediocrities he is swimming against.

To an extent, it does. Right from the opening sequence, Perry’s penchant for storytelling via stunts with some semblance of style become manifest. Jamie Foxx, sporting a mask and balaclava, barges into the home of an elderly woman and knocks the living daylights out of her. Only, she isn’t quite living, but a geriatric vampire. And he is a vampire hunter. In a subsequent raid, he deals more swifter blows against two teen vamps, before running into an entire colony taking residence at a suburban home. Martial arts maven Scott Adkins too lends his adept hands. Vampire hunters may come armed with wooden bullets, silver swords and garlic grenades. But in a world where vampires are ace contortionists who can pull off the slickest moves, Foxx’s latter-day Van Helsing will need all the help he can get.

While Perry’s sense of choreography may provide a fresh transfusion of kinetic thrills to the non-stop hack-and-slash spectacle, the comedy feels like reheated blood in a new bottle. All the beheadings, shootouts and wholesale vampire slaughter can’t hide the fact that this is another (un)dead-on-arrival Netflix original. Most of the gags are themselves stiff with rigor mortis. The screenplay by Tyler Tice and Shay Hatten has the stench of something that has been rotting in a coffin and hasn’t been exposed to sunlight for way too long.

If the title doesn’t tell you already, the action unfolds mostly when the sun is still up in San Fernando Valley. Meaning the gothic origins are underplayed and some of the nautical creatures have adapted to walking and plotting around in the light of day. Thanks to sunscreen which provides temporary relief and needs constant layering up. The vampires of the valley have lived amongst the humans for long enough to have their own hierarchy. An exposition dump reveals there are five subspecies: Easterns, Spiders, Southern, Ubers and Juveniles. In order to take them all down, vampire hunters have set up their own union.

Bud Jablonski (Foxx), however, isn’t a part of it, having been ousted for not following the rules. So, he works as a freelancer while masquerading as a pool cleaner. He gets paid for every fang he collects and brings to his K-pop obsessed broker (Peter Stormare). The higher up the chain the vampire is, the more cash he gets in this black market which has its own “Fang index.” The problem is the jobs don’t always pay well even if the expenses keep piling up — the bane of being a freelancer after all. Bud’s daughter Paige (Zion Broadnax) is in need of braces and school tuition, and his ex-wife Joss (Meagan Good) is threatening to sell their house and move across the country. Bud has all but a weekend to come up with the money to make them stay. That is the stakes of it all.

This is where Snoop Dogg ’s Stetson-wearing fellow vampire hunter Big John comes in. He makes a case on Bud’s behalf to the union chief Ralph Seeger (Eric Lange) to give him a second chance. It takes some convincing before Ralph agrees, but it comes with a string attached. A dorky union rep in Seth (Dave Franco) will accompany Bud on his assignments, and report back on any code violations. Seth is a book-smart, scared-shitless pencil pusher forced to ride with a street-smart, dauntless renegade. Franco and Foxx play off each other like the odd couple, but the results are seldom funny. Slaughter-fests, car chases and other hijinks ensue. All roads lead to a final-act showdown in the catacombs with real estate agent Audrey San Fernando (Karla Souza), a vampire conspiring to unite all the vampires and take over the Valley.

With a blue-collar worker for a hero and a world full of parasites, Day Shift could have made for a bitingly funny movie had Tice and Hatten fitted it with sharper satirical teeth. But any such potential is defanged by their lack of aspiration for any kind of humour beyond the lowest common denominator. If Netflix intended Day Shift to be a franchise starter by any chance, such uninspired choices pretty much put a stake through its future. Thank goodness for that.

Day Shift is now streaming on Netflix.

Prahlad Srihari is a film and music writer based in Bengaluru.

Read all the  Latest News _,_  Trending News _,_  Cricket News _,_  Bollywood News _,_  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook _,_  Twitter  and  Instagram _._