NIGHT PATROL Review

The Wrestler-To-Actor pipeline sure is full of twists and turns and loop-de-loops. You would think that being real time performers for whom speaking is a large part of the job, they would be able to create a screen presence and recite lines pretty easily when allowed multiple takes. And yet, as history has shown, it's anything besides a sure thing.

One of the greatest and most charismatic professional wrestlers of all time, the Immortal Hulk Hogan, was notoriously bad at the whole acting thing. Nothing that spewed forth from his mustachioed mouth felt particularly natural, and his cinematic choices were... poor to say the least. Mr. Nanny. Santa With Muscles. Suburban Commando. He wasn't knocking it out of the park or really stretching his talents with those options.

"Rowdy" Roddy Piper had a more uneven tenure as a big screen performer. He had a great turn in John Carpenter's They Live, but another movie of his, Hell Comes To Frogtown, reached minor cult classic level at its absolute peak.

WWE's late 90's and early 2000's stars like Stone Cold Steve Austin, Triple-H, and The Big Show also branched out to the fringes of Hollywood, but they failed to find massive success with outings like The Condemned, The Chaperone, or Knucklehead, respectively.

There would be greater positivity for the pipeline in more recent years where a trio of grapplers--The Rock, John Cena, and Dave Bautista--would become some of Hollywood's most successful and bankable talents in the 2010's and 2020's. They typically play action roles, sure, but each has shown more range and capabilities than their predecessors. Cena and Bautista in particular have shown a desire to take roles that play counter to their hulking appearances.

Next up down the pipeline seems to be Phil "CM Punk" Brooks. His newest release is Night Patrol, a Shudder original. Punk has had a few other cinematic efforts, but nothing I have ever seen before (movies like Rabid, Girl On The Third Floor, and Jakob's Wife). He is still trying to break through, though, so let's see how his new film worked out.

Night Patrol is the story of the titular specialized police force in Los Angeles, and in addition to Punk, it stars Jermaine Fowler, Freddie Gibbs, Justin Long, and others. Early in the flick, Justin Long's character murders an innocent woman to prove his loyalty to the Patrol so he can join their numbers. But he quickly reveals he is trying to infiltrate the organization to find out more about the death of his father years before.

In addition to this, there is a mystical backdrop to the goings on, as Gibbs' character's mother practices the Zulu religion as a means of protection against evil in the night. And there is also the story of the eternal feud between the Bloods and the Crips and how they factor in to all of the craziness!

There are a lot of different aspects to Night Patrol, and over the course of the film, they all forge a singular point where the stories come together. Will the innocents--such as they are in this one--survive the night?

TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS

+ There is a surprising early third act death of a main character that I didn’t see coming. It gave me a shock and kept me on my toes. I am obviously not going to get into who dies or how or why, but it is one of the core members of the flick. And this character dies suddenly and out-of-nowhere! I'm always up for being completely blindsided by a film, and Night Patrol sure did it to me in that instance.

+ Jermaine Fowler, Justin Long, CM Punk, Dermot Mulroney… this picture has an interesting cast, that’s for sure. It’s worth watching just to see all these recognizable faces doing work. I've been a fan of Fowler's ever since The Blackening, and then I saw him at a panel at New York Comic Con this past fall where he talked a little about this movie coming down the pike. So I've been waiting for this for a while!

Justin Long is something of a horror staple from over the last twenty or so years, as he makes frequent appearances in the genre, almost always to end up getting killed off. Does he survive Night Patrol? You'll have to tune in to find out!

- The story is basically absolute nonsense, especially for the first two acts. It doesn’t make loads of sense and things seem to happen just for the sake of happening. There are a lot of characters introduced quickly, and even more plot points. Night Patrol is really throwing everything at the viewer and not giving enough explanation as to why it's all occurring.

- The effects, editing, and camerawork are all pretty shoddy. There is some inspired ideas behind them, but they are not executed particularly well. It feels too gimmicky, and it took me out of the film as I watched it. Ryan Prows, the director, seems to have an idea for what he wants to do, but it doesn't quite come together. It's a shame because the movie doesn't look terrible at points, but for swaths of it, the cuts and the movement of the camera just don't fly.  

Night Patrol is a convoluted mess of a movie that has too much going on and not enough explanation as to why any of it was happening. As a wrestling fan, it's fun to see Punk in a prominent role doing his best (which is, admittedly, not that different than watching him deliver a promo, so take that how you will), but all in all, this is a Shudder outing that you don't need to seek out.

🍿SCORE = 28 / 100