IR Film Review: NIGHT PATROL [Shudder]
"Night Patrol" is an interesting play upon the cop/gang genre by placing it within a deeper genre context but not avoiding what the film is really about. Directed by Jordan Prows, an AFI alum, the film delves into the gangland structure of Los Angeles with a similar vengeance of something like "Training Day" but a different track. This film feels lived in because it filmed in these areas but also understands what it is showing, even if it is subtlely (and sometimes obviously) subverted. The dialogue is vivid, true and crisp and allows for both the cadence and humor as well as authenticity to ring through. The film begins in following a Crip: Wazzi (RJ Cyler) meeting up with his girlfriend (who is a Blood) and a tragedy that comes from that. It makes one think it is going to be a Romeo & Juliet situation but is changes into more of a hunter scenario involving an LAPD unit called Night Patrol with little oversight and permission to use lethal force. The interesting mythology is that gangland is very much aware of this unit and what they might be though the truth is not brought to the surface until later in the film. Granted the Night Patrol is all white, covered in masks and spouting some racist lines.
The interesting balance point is Justin Long, as a former Navy Seal, looking to join its ranks. His partner in Jermaine Fowler is interested too but has to know the lineage it comes from balanced with his own background. His brother is Wazzi (who starts off and is present throughout the film) and his mother, an OG Crip, is a Zulu who is defiant in protecting her people with its magic and tradition. The film makes reference that this is some of the underlying mysticism. On the reverse the Bloods in this incarnation through their leader played by Freddie Gibbs and his lieutenants seem to be conspiracy theorists and that feeds into what actually their enemies are doing and how they perceive the war. Once Gibbs gets going he offers the energy and intensity wrapped up in humor that propels the final part of the film. CM Punk takes on as the paranoid but vicious overall leader of Night Patrol. The genre style of the story really comes full in halfway through the second act but the allusion to what it is much clearer.
Fowler's progression is being caught between the worlds but the way he interacts with his mother is an interesting misdirect but still brutal. Justin Long as the new recruit comes in a bit more jacked than we have seen him before. He of course usually has the tinges of comic relief whereas this is more brutal and deconstructive in its delivery. What is interesting is that in the latter half of the film, he is the most unhinged in a space that itself is out of control. Prows uses real locations and night shoots for a bit of constructed chaos but it does feel organic in its conception and the issues it is tackling while existing a genre space that allows it to approach the material without being obliquely head on. That said the power of what it is showing and its metaphorical (and literal) connotations also functioning as an inherent vampire pic (despite some shortcomings on that mythology). B
By Tim Wassberg
