DAY SHIFT: 3 STARS. “a pretty good Saturday matinee style horror comedy.”
“Day Shift,” a new action comedy starring Jamie Foxx, and now streaming on Netflix, brings a supernatural twist to the familiar story of a father doing what he has to do to hang on to his family.
Foxx plays Bud, a San Fernando Valley pool cleaner and undercover vampire slayer. A fearless hunter of the undead while on the job, at home he’s a devoted father, but things aren’t going well. He and his wife Joceyln (Meagan Good) have separated, and unless Bud can come up with $5000 to pay for private school tuition for daughter Paige (Zion Broadnax), mother and daughter are going to move to Florida.
Neither the pool cleaning or freelance vampire killing pay what they used to, and when a local pawnbroker (Peter Stormare) offers him a fraction of what his trophy vampire fangs are worth, he is left with only one option, join the vampire-hunter’s union.
Trouble is, they don’t want him. “You expect me to let you back in where the sun don’t shine?” asks union leader Ralph Seeger (Eric Lange). He’s a rebel, he doesn’t follow the rules, he’s a wild card but when legendary vamp killer Big John Elliott (Snoop Dogg) vouches for him, Bud gets in, but the union has him on probation and his every move will be monitored by straightlaced union rep Seth (Dave Franco). “I have to be with you at all times in the field,” Seth says. “Union rules.”
Bud can now earn the money he needs to keep his family together, unless elder vampire Audrey San Fernando (Karla Souza) gets her bloody revenge on him for killing her undead daughter.
“Day Shift” is an action comedy with an emphasis on bloody action. Between the decapitations, martial arts fight sequences, wooden stakings and Snoop’s Big Bertha rapid fire machine gun, this one has a much higher body count than your usual laugh fest. Foxx does his best to bleed the laughs out of the script. He’s a convincing action star, a kind of jokey Blade, who also has a way with a one-liner. His presence adds some much-needed lightness and his chemistry with Franco makes the character of Seth a tad less irksome.
“Day Shift” suffers from an underwritten script and overwrought plot turns, but despite all that, the action, Foxx and Snoop makes for a pretty good Saturday matinee style horror comedy à la “Monster Squad” or “Fright Night.”
