Saturday, August 20, 2022

Netflix: Mini-Reviews of DAY SHIFT and CARTER: Fighting Fathers

 August 18, 2022

DAY SHIFT

Director: J.J. Perry

Bud Jablonski (Jamie Foxx) was known to be a pool cleaner, but he is actually a vampire hunter. He made money by selling the fangs of the vampires he killed. He had been violating a lot of rules with the way he worked which led to him being kicked out of the union. He desperately needed money so that his ex-wife Joss (Meagan Good) will not bring their daughter Paige to Florida. However, union boss Seeger only agreed to let Bud work if he went with a union rep Seth (Dave Franco) to make sure he stuck to the rules. 

This film began on high gear with Bud called on an old woman in a granny dressing gown who was then revealed to be a vampire. That opening scene would set up the rest of the film's dark humor and bloody violence which involved slashing heads off and pulling out fangs as proof of kill. Foxx's Bud was a believable hero figure, with Franco's nerdy Seth providing effective odd-couple contrast. Snoop Dogg can really do these cool dudes like Big John Elliot very well, but Karen Souza tried too hard to be campy as main villain Audrey but still came up short. 6/10.


CARTER

Director: Jung Byung-gil

Carter (Joo Won) is an agent who had willingly lost his memory in order to fulfill a mission which could heal his daughter sick of a virus who turned its victims into violent zombies. His mission involved going to South Korea to bring back Hana, an infected girl who had been cured of this viral affliction by her father Dr. Jung Byung-ho, back to North Korea. Carter is guided by the voice of Han Jung-hee, a female agent of the North Korea's Labor Party, which was working on a vaccine for the virus with Dr. Jung.

This film used excessively stylized camera techniques to bring its audience into the middle of the action. This can be quite a dizzying viewing experience, as the camera rapidly panned in different directions to approximate the frenetic action. Aside from Carter, the little girl Hana also got involved in some pretty hair-raising stunts on a wooden bridge, on a speeding train, and while floating in mid-air. Everything was so over-the-top and actually quite entertaining for the most part, if you are not the easily nauseous, prone to motion-sickness type. 6/10


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