The Day Shift is a run-of-the-mill action, horror, comedy that isn’t enough of any one thing
Let’s just start by saying that Snoop Dogg is great. He is charismatic as hell and the camera really likes him. However, he is still Snoop Dogg. No matter what character name he is given, he is simply an entertainer larger than the role. It would benefit any movie casting him to simply let Snoop be Snoop; otherwise, he is a constant reminder that this is just a movie and it’s hard to fully buy-in to any scene he is in.
This is a movie that is entertaining. It has some nice action sequences, some good horror elements and some fun comedic moments. However, The Day Shift doesn’t commit fully to any single genre and ends up being a messy mashup without any real sense of pacing or purpose.
The cast puts it out there – Jamie Foxx, Dave Franco, Karlla Souza, Megan Good, among others, do a fine job. There are no disappointing performances.
There are multiple sub-plots that don’t work and don’t payoff. But at its essence, Jamie Foxx plays a vampire hunter who is trying to get back into the vampire hunter’s union to keep his family together.
The best sequence arrives when one of the main characters gets beheaded, but in an ode to 80’s horror, has to reattach his own head. Really, you’ll just have to watch this one.
The movie is filled with gore, but never really works as a horror movie, and this is its biggest fault. How do you mix vampires with gallons of blood and not make a horror movie? That is an admirable mark to miss.
The action is mostly goofy and feels out of place and over-the-top. The choreography is questionable and the digital VFX are distracting at times.
This seems like a movie that was trying to appeal to way too many people and never succeeds at appealing enough to one genre in particular.
The movie has a few entertaining moments, yes, but The Day Shift is mostly just meh, and I expect to forget I saw it shortly after writing this review.
Gordon’s Grade: C-
