Even while breaking genre conventions may result in a pleasant payoff when done well, Day Shift demonstrates how carelessly it can be done. J.J. Perry, a martial artist, and action choreographer make his directorial debut with this movie, which quickly transitions from horror to buddy comedy to action to family-friendly to a road movie
If a parent does not get a sizable quantity of money quickly, his family will perish. The father, Bud Jablonski (Jamie Foxx), works as a pool cleaner by day and a vampire hunter by night, or is it the other way around? Forget it. To stop his ex-wife Jocelyn (Meagan Good) from traveling to Florida with their daughter Paige, Bud needs money (Zion Broadnax).
In order to receive top pay for his employment, he swallows his pride and rejoins the vampire-fighting union (from which he was expelled due to his dangerous behavior). Famous vampire hunter Big John (Snoop Dogg) recommends Bud, but Ralph Seeger (Eric Lange), Bud’s employer, isn’t having any of it. Desk jockey Seth (Dave Franco) is the union representative Ralph demands Bud travels with. Legendary vampire hunters Mike (Steve Howey) and Diran (Scott Adkins) Nazarian are also involved, as well as Bud’s neighbor Heather (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), who may be more than just a sympathetic nurse. The pawnbroker Troy (Peter Stormare) has a difficult situation involving pliers and teeth.
In order to receive top pay for his employment, he swallows his pride and rejoins the vampire-fighting union (from which he was expelled due to his dangerous behavior). Famous vampire hunter Big John (Snoop Dogg) recommends Bud, but Ralph Seeger (Eric Lange), Bud’s employer, isn’t having any of it. Desk jockey Seth (Dave Franco) is the union representative Ralph demands Bud travels with. Legendary vampire hunters Mike (Steve Howey) and Diran (Scott Adkins) Nazarian are also involved, as well as Bud’s neighbor Heather (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), who may be more than just a sympathetic nurse. The pawnbroker Troy (Peter Stormare) has a difficult situation involving pliers and teeth.
They are all confronted by Audrey (Karla Souza), a wicked vampire woman who talks as though she had a mouthful of fangs, but she actually does. When Audrey is not torturing people and consuming their blood, she is a hotshot realtor (what is the subtext here, then?).
On paper, the theory seems absolutely sound, but when seen in action, it reads like a disorganized mess. The humor is quite childish, the action scenes are slack, and the gore is little. The sole redeeming grace in a movie that makes a lot of promises but delivers very little is Foxx’s charm.
