Day Shift is the latest Netflix film starring Jamie Foxx (Collateral), Dave Franco (Now You See Me) and Snoop Dogg. It is directed by long-time stuntman but first-time director, J.J. Perry.

Day Shift is set in modern day Los Angeles, in a reality where vampires live in secret amongst humans. Well, I think it’s in secret. Like, the movie is a bit inconsistent on this front. On the one hand, a couple of characters find out about midway through the movie that Jamie Foxx‘s character is in fact, a vampire hunter. But on the other hand, there are a couple of “celebrity vampire hunters” who have a huge following on Instagram. So I dunno. I think the logic is meant to be that vampires are a secret and the other part was just a little oversight.

Anyway, as I mentioned before, Jamie Foxx plays Bud Jablonski, a vampire hunter, and a good one at that. Bud needs money to prevent his ex-wife taking his daughter away, and the only way to do that is to try and rejoin the Vampire Hunter’s Union, a faction that he has previously been banned from. He is allowed to rejoin due to a vouching from his former partner and legendary vampire hunter Big John, played by Snoop Dogg, but with strict conditions, including having to be accompanied in the field by Union office worker and kiss-ass, Seth, played by Dave Franco.

You can see from the set-up there that this story is pretty cliched. Both the “have to do X in a certain amount of days to save my family” and the “you must work with this partner who you are not gonna like” tropes have been used so, so much in movies. The story is not the strength of this film, which isn’t a surprise considering it’s a Netflix vehicle. But this film does have two things going for it.

First off, the world-building. While it’s never addressed in any deep manner in the movie, it’s obvious the writers at least built some kind of history and lore for this world. They set up a market for vampire fangs much like we have in real life for say gold or tuna meat, any of the shit you see on those Discovery channel shows. Vampires of different ages and bloodlines have fangs that are worth more or less. For something that doesn’t have much to do with the actual story of the movie, it was cool to see, at least for me, some effort put into that side of things. They also touch on different types of vampires, each with their own characteristics and whatnot. Again, not a lot of time is spent on this, but it’s cool that you can see the writers at least thought about it.

My second strength is just the general presentation of the film. Well, most of it. There are some very fun action sequences, including a pretty cool car chase, as well as a warehouse shootout set to “Body Count’s In The House,” which is a banger. The action sequences in general are shot pretty well, although sometimes there are a couple of quick cuts to hide a stunt double. It feels like a knock-off version of John Wick action, and I don’t mean that as an insult. Something they chose to do in some of the action scenes was to cast contortionists from Cirque del Soleil as vampires, which allowed for some cool, creepy bending and shit.

Now, the film isn’t all good unfortunately. As I mentioned earlier, the story is pretty pants. Like, it’s fine, but it’s very basic. Adding to that, the acting mostly sucks. I liked Dave Franco, as well as Scott Adkins and Steve Howey, the latter two playing the previously-alluded-to celebrity vampire hunters and feature in one very cool action sequence. But the rest of the cast are mid, or worse. I will say Jamie Foxx is good in action scenes, but in the scenes with his daughter when he has to like act a bit, he seems to be less interested than Martin Scorsese watching an MCU film. Speaking of the daughter, I don’t want to dunk on a child actor, but call me Vince Carter because she was awful. And Snoop Dogg, while a spectacle, and a fun one at that, well, his acting was a little…ruff (get it? Dogg? Ruff?).

I think the best thing I can say about Day Shift is that I believe it has potential to become a cult classic, not reaching the highs of the likes of The Lost Boys, From Dusk Till Dawn or Near Dark, but maybe more the middles of 30 Days of Night or (one I personally love but I might be on an island here) Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. It’s a fine way to kill two hours on a Friday night and is quite fun in places, but there is so much unrealised potential that this just doesn’t hit. A shame.