The #1 movie on Netflix in the US is a new action-comedy starring Jamie Foxx as a vampire hunter that, by and large, both critics and fans think is … well, it’s just okay, if we’re being generous. Day Shift is a Netflix original that hit the streamer on Friday, August 12. And thanks, perhaps, to the star wattage of Foxx as well as cast members like Snoop Dogg, the movie soared straight to the #1 spot on the Top 10 movies list that the streamer maintains inside its app.
However, that’s most likely just a function of people being curious about this project because of the big names attached, as opposed to this being a must-watch, as we’ll get into below.
Is Day Shift worth watching?
If you put much stock in a signal like Rotten Tomatoes ratings? Then the answer to the question about whether this new Netflix release is worth watching is: Probably not.
There was a great Puck News piece over the weekend, offering a deep dive into the disappearance of the kind of “raunchy, Apataowian” comedies that dominated the box office of yesteryear (think, mid-2000s). People have blamed this on everything from cancel culture to Covid to an aversion to risk-taking from the major studios.
Whatever the reason, Day Shift feels very much in line with a lot of the recent (and throwaway) Netflix original action comedies. If you liked titles like Red Notice and The Man from Toronto, in other words? This one should also be up your alley.
Here, meanwhile, is what you need to know about the movie. Foxx plays “Bud Jablonski,” a blue-collar father trying to provide for his daughter Paige (Zion Broadnax) and stay in the good graces of his estranged wife Jocelyn (Meagan Good).
Foxx’s character cleans pools in the San Fernando Valley — on the day shift, as it were. But that’s actually just a front for how he really makes his money. Which is by hunting and killing vampires.
Because of “code violations,” Jablonski has been kicked out of the lucrative international union of vampire hunters. To get by, he sells fangs to black-market customers. When Jocelyn threatens to move to Florida, though, Jablonski decides he needs to make money fast.
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Reviews and reaction
Ultimately, Day Shift is “the kind of star-driven vehicle that yields obvious benefits to Netflix even if, qualitatively speaking, it doesn’t deserve to see the light of day.”
That’s according to a CNN review included in the Rotten Tomatoes critic’s aggregate score of 58% (basically, meh), as of the time of this writing. It’s based on 83 total reviews at the moment.
Over on the viewers’ side of the equation, the current aggregate Rotten Tomatoes score there is … 59% (so, again, meh). That percentage is based on more than 250 user ratings at the moment. “On the scale of ‘fell asleep’ to ‘stayed awake,’ it’s a ‘stayed awake’ but got sleepy towards the end,” one Rotten Tomatoes user review opines.
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