In the end I gave up and started liking Night Patrol, a hybrid beast that starts out as an update on Romeo and Juliet, with action shifted to the LA of Bloods and Crips, but winds up somewhere else entirely – in vampire territory. I think it was the audacity of the move that tickled me.
There is an unwritten rule that rappers make good actors, going back to Tupac at least. Though there’s no shortage of them in this movie, the rule is clearly not universally applicable – flakiness and flat line readings abound. It does not matter too much because the action is largely with… well that’s a good question in itself. It starts out looking like the story is going to centre on Justin Long’s cop Ethan Hawkins and his burning desire to be in the elite vigilante Night Patrol, because his dead dad was. Then it shifts a touch to being about Ethan’s patrol buddy Xavier Carr (Jermaine Fowler), who will never be a member of the Night Patrol because he has the wrong colour skin. Before ultimately settling down to focusing on Xavier’s brother Wazi (RJ Cyler), a lover-not-a-fighter kind of guy whose girlfriend is killed by the Night Patrol in the film’s opening moments, and who then wanders into enemy Blood territory, to inform her brother, Bornelius (Freddie Gibbs).
Racist cops waging war on ghetto gangs who are already waging war against each other. There’s enough to be going on with there. It’s when director and co-writer Ryan Prows reveal that the cops are also vampires, and that they periodically indulge in what they call “the sacred hunt”, a night of savage blood-letting, that things get weird and a touch overstuffed. The Attack the Block-style finale, with the rival gangs coming together to fight the common foe, adds yet more busy-ness.
In case the race theme hadn’t hit hard enough, there’s Nicki Micheaux as Ayanda, the mouthy mother of Wazi and Xavier who’s heavily into Zulu juu-juu, which she reckons will save everyone from the vampires. “We were put on this earth to fry white Satan to a crisp,” she shouts at one point, milking the line for comedy. And Jon Oswald as white cop Rivette, a scumbag and a slimeball, and stupid, and racist, and incredibly uncouth – a very brief performance by Jon Oswald that will have casting directors everywhere putting another asterisk next to his name.
Dermot Mulroney too, as cop Ethan Hawkins’s dad. Ethan thought the old man was dead but it turns out he’s vampire-in-chief. Mulroney is not in it for much more than a cameo, but he does undead swagger very well, leaving CM Punk as his mortal representative to take home the prize for real, live cop with the baddest attitude. Not forgetting Freddie Gibbs, who wobbles at first before locking into his character as tough Blood mutha Bornelius – Gibbs also supplies some of the music.
Racism this blatant is oddly refreshing, as is the distinctive African angle, and Prows’s fascination for gonzo horror – entrails! – adds a ghoulish crowd-pleasingness to the whole thing. But in the end it comes down to RJ Cyler’s performance, and once the film has decided it’s all about Wazi, it’s as if Cyler flicks a switch and the charisma starts to flow.
Being honest, there’s terrible stuff in here, but none of it is unforgivable. Prows wants to be an updated John Carpenter – Pepijn Caudron’s synthy score gives that away – and it’s as if he is trying to squeeze as many styles of Carpenter movie into one portmanteau as he can. It’s either reckless or vainglorious, or maybe both.
Night Patrol – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2026
