Night Patrol (2025)
RJ Cyler, Justin Long, Jermaine Fowler, Freddie Gibbs, Nicki Micheaux, YG, Flying Lotus, Phil Brooks, Nick Gillie, Dermot Mulroney

Ok, so.. I.. wow. And not a good wow. A “why did I actually sit through that whole piece of shit” kinda wow. Oh my gods…

An LAPD cop discovers a local task force is hiding a secret that puts the residents of his childhood neighborhood in danger.

Usually, I try and find at least one good thing to say about a film before I trash it. Maybe there’s good makeups, some decent acting, some little interesting thing that might save it. And ok, it had an interesting premise (otherwise I just wouldn’t have started the film at all), but it does literally nothing with it. So I might as well get into it.

So. First, the language. I have no idea what it’s like to be in a gang. I won’t pretend I know what it’s like to be black. But if I had a dollar for every time the N word was used, I’d be a rich lady. It was so over-used. And black stereotypes? All there.

The basic premise is there’s a special task force of the LAPD that are known as the “Night Patrol”, and they’re supposedly on gang watch. What it really is, is a bunch of neo-nazi vampires who just kill black people who live in the projects indiscriminately. Ok, so we have the evil LAPD officers against the “trash” that lives in the projects. Got it. OMG how did they convince black actors to star in this?? If I were black, I’d have taken one look at that script and told them to go fuck themselves. It makes me question what kind of people the white actors who were in this are. Yes, it’s that bad.

SPOILER WARNING (in case anyone wants to watch this turd)

So, our hero is a gangbanger named Wazi. His brother Xavier is an LAPD officer who wants to get into the Night Patrol, but we know he never will cause he’s black. Wazi’s girlfriend is killed by an initiate of the Night Patrol, an officer named Hawkins, who’s partner is Xavier. It’s being drilled into our heads that Hawkins is a good guy, even though he’s done some truly awful stuff (besides killing Wazi’s girlfriend, he’s also responsible for some war crimes that got swept under the rug). He eventually confides in his partner that he’s going into the Night Patrol cause he believes that they killed his father. But lo and behold, when he’s finally initiated into the Night Patrol, he finds his father leads them. The vampires then go after the people that live in the projects, put them in cages, newly turned Hawkins kills Xavier, then tries to resist, but he JUST CAN’T you guys! Did I mention that the only thing that stopped them was some Zulu mysticism? Oh yeah, that’s in there. So Wazi manages to kill Hawkins, then gets thrown in a room with the vampires, manages to kill Hawkins senior, throws himself into the pile of vampires surrounding him and we fade to black. Did you get all that? God, it was bad.

Now for the more technical stuff, I guess. The acting was bad. Really bad. Justin Long and Dermot Mulroney, who I both usually like, were AWFUL. Everyone was overacting. And not in a fun, “chewing the scenery” kinda way. The dialog was forced and just plain stupid. People just don’t talk like that. There weren’t extensive makeups, but everything that could have been done by makeup was done with cgi. Cgi bullet wounds (I miss squibs), cgi fire, cgi blood spurts, everything. The camerawork was all over the place, it was almost nauseating sometimes.

So do I recommend it? Good god, no. Absolutely not. Nope. Nope from space. This gets a 1/10 from me. What a waste of time.

M.

This movie is streaming on Shudder and AMC+ should you feel the need to watch the trainwreck for yourselves. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.