It’s always a bummer to see a movie squander an incredible elevator pitch, but our current political climate makes Night Patrol’s failures particularly egregious. The story posits that the L.A.P.D. hasn’t just been targeting Black folks for decades, and for purely racist reasons, but that its upper ranks are all vampires actively hunting them, using redlining to herd their food into one place. The only hope of stopping them lies in a former revolutionary from the block (Nicki Micheaux) taking a back-to-Africa approach, combining the tools of her ancestors with the sheer numbers of the local Crip and Blood factions to fight off the hordes.
Getting that premise right requires a sense of nuance, a firm grasp on racial politics, and a willingness to speak truth to power with brutal honesty. Night Patrol, particularly by contrast to the extremely similar but infinitely more effective The First Purge, comes across as just straight-up exploitative, paying lip service to the idea of police brutality in a way where the Black people under siege are either nameless cannon fodder or a collection of stereotypes.
The best established character in Ryan Prows’s film is Ethan (Justin Long), a second generation cop who executes a woman in cold blood to gain his membership to the titular squad in the very first scene. Long’s portrayal of how state power absolutely curdles anything well-meaning out of men looking for purpose is all in his mannerisms, hesitations, and unexamined rage.
But the film doesn’t afford that same depth of purpose to any other character, not even Ethan’s partner Xavier (Jermaine Fowler), an ex-Crip-turned-cop whose brother is the only witness to the murder. The script seems either unwilling or unequipped to wrestle with the paradox of someone that closely linked to the streets working with more dangerous oppressors. But we sure as hell spend an uncomfortable amount of time watching Xavier play up his dangerous gangsta past as part of a Scared Straight-style presentation to a bunch of kids.
The film’s lack of subtlety could’ve been forgiven if pure visceral thrills weren’t in short supply. Dirty, jittery cinematography frames action scenes that may be heavy on fake blood, but they’re devoid of revulsion, meaning, or unique terrors. There’s a shot of two people running from a horde of vampires late in Night Patrol that could’ve been plucked off the cutting room floor of Black Dynamite, and the climax hinges on a magical MacGuffin indistinguishable from a Green Lantern ring. A film this misguided treading in politically loaded territory makes even the intentionally pulpy likes of Tales from the Hood look like a PBS documentary.
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