My quick rating – 4.9/10. If the Shudder logo pops up before a movie, you can usually expect one of two things. A hidden gem or a cinematic science experiment. Night Patrol kinda slides itself into both categories.
The movie opens with a bleeding teenager in an interrogation room, begging for help while a cop basically says, “Sure, but first, paperwork.” There’s something sticking out of the kid’s side, but bureaucracy is the real final boss. It’s a darkly funny, grim little opener that promises payoff later, and yes, the film does eventually loop back around to it.
We then shift into a routine bust of a make-out session with Officers Marcus (CM Punk) and Hayworth (Justin Long), and things escalate from “routine bust” to “that escalated extremely quickly” when an initiation goes very, very wrong. Long plays the role with a smug, controlled edge that makes you instantly suspicious, like a motivational speaker who owns too many knives. Able to escape the scene is Wazi, played by RJ Cyler, who some folks will recognize from The ‘Burbs, and you should recognize from the interrogation room. And that gets us to the opening credits.
Chapter 1 is entitled LAPD, and Hayworth introduces himself to school kids by staging what is essentially a live-action trauma drill. Officer Xavier (Jermaine Fowler) submerges himself entirely too much into the role of the stereotypical gunman. Nothing says “don’t steal” like simulated mortal terror before homeroom.
The structure is split into chapters, which gives the film a graphic-novel rhythm. There’s a conspiracy brewing inside a special police task force, a manufactured gang war setup, and a colonial-court battleground sequence with heavy smoke and heavier firepower that genuinely looks great. When the Night Patrol rolls in through the haze and starts wiping people out, it’s stylish and brutally disturbing.
Dermot Mulroney shows up as Sarge, adding some veteran presence, while director Ryan Prows and company put a new-ish twist on vampire lore. Not a better twist, not a worse twist, just one that made me tilt my head like a confused dog.
There’s some legitimately strong stuff here. The early kills are sudden and nasty, the moral lines are clearly drawn, and the setup is loaded with potential. There’s even a goofy planning scene with a puff-puff-pass strategy session that almost tricks you into thinking the third act will hold together.
Unfortunately, once the story hits its mystical-power phase – complete with an energy effect that looks suspiciously like it borrowed a prop from Green Lantern – the movie drives straight off the beaten track. What starts tense and entertaining turns chaotic and quite stupid.
It’s frustrating, because most of Night Patrol works…right up until it really, really doesn’t. Still worth a watch for the concept, the gore, and Long having a blast, but this patrol needed one more rewrite before clocking in. And don’t expect another Sinners.
