🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Ryan Prows
What if a film tried to mash up the Oedipus complex with vampires, Crips, Bloods, crooked cops, not-so-crooked cops, vampire cops, mother/son tensions, father/son tensions, and African mysticism? Not possible, right?
Well it wasn’t possible until this year’s Night Patrol hit streaming services. It’s got all these things, and weirdly more. If you think it sounds like too many things then you may want to stay clear of the latest in cop-horror.
Directed by Ryan Prows (VHS 94, “Terror” segment), the film fundamentally contains a really great idea. What if the police were way worse than you thought they were? What if they were actually vampires with little concern for human life or the community that they are supposed to protect and serve?
Positively littered with a cast of “I know that guy, he was in that thing”, Night Patrol follows many different tendrils. But, the film is largely centered on two police officers. White officer, Ethan Hawkins (Justin Long) and black officer Xavier Carr (Jermaine Fowler).
They present as metaphorical sides of the same coin with Hawkins, as a special forces veteran who is interested in protecting the community, and Carr who’s from the community and wants to do right as an officer of the law. Problem is Hawkins has been invited to join a horrible gaggle of crooked cops — known as Night Patrol — who have direct ties to his decreased father. Carr on the other hand is trying to deal with his Crip brother Wazi (RJ Cyler) who’s actively trying to tear the community apart.
Both Carr and Hawkins are after the same thing, but the grey areas of social justice and injustice continue to get in the way of community policing. When Hawkins is presented with the profound Night Patrol promotion, he jumps in with enthusiasm and aplomb. However, when he realizes that Night Patrol is really a undead cadre of crooked cops, he quickly becomes demure.
In a fit of Oedipal complexities, it just so happens, the Night Patrol is run by his deceased father, Sarge (Dermot Mulroney). What could problematic than the rivalry of the father/son Oedipal complex? Sarge is a VAMPIRE!
While Hawkins is dealing with his vampire father, Carr is dealing with his vampire-killing-zulu-mom, Ayanda (Nicki Micheaux), who has very definite ideas about Carr’s role as a cop, and her other son’s role as a Crip. Each with their own questionable life choices.
The local Crips and Bloods, with the Ayanda, discover that the Night Patrol is only trying to cleanse the impoverished neighborhood of its less than savory elements, they’re actually trying to round up every last community for a forced blood drive. Since these vampires are also cops, it’s clear they don’t have time to satiate their vampiric tendencies on an individual basis. They need blood in massive quantities.
In the final act the Night Patrol comes face-to-face with the communal fire power of the Crips, Bloods, and everyone else in project that doesn’t want to become a vampire snack. Who will win the showdown of the crypt vs. the Crip?
Should you see Night Patrol?
Again, while this has a really interesting foundation, it becomes something of a Christmas tree with far too many ornaments. The number of metaphors, sub-plots, and allegory is a little dizzying at times. By no means is it confusing, it’s just too much.
Night Patrol a good looking film, sprinkled with some cool hip hop tracks, but it is frustrated the fact that the interesting performances by hip hop royalty — Freddie Gibbs (Bornelius), YG (Tripp), and Flying Lotus (Three Duce) — are undone by so little screen time. Sadly, the film is juggling so many competing story elements, that their Blood subplot is thinned out.
One or two metaphors is fine, but when the viewer is forced to understand the subtleties of six+ different parables, they hold very little emotional resonance.
Night Patrol is Rated R and available on Shudder.