Joining the seemingly endless and well trodden path of mismatched cops buddy movies is First Shift. And the first shift in question is that of New York cop Deo (Gino Anthony Pesi) assigned with a new partner Angela (Kristen Renton) fresh in from Florida. She’s the upbeat sunshine state cop to his belligerent Big Apple bastard. It hardly helps that she’s social media addicted documenting her day to her followers much to Deo’s disdain. As mismatched buddy cops you know that his contempt and dislike for her will melt into a grudging respect for one another by the end of their first shift. That’s the law for the genre.
So thrown into this is several story strands that includes a disturbed man locking himself in his bathroom, a mob hit on a father and son, and an old man who keels over in a shop leaving Deo in charge of his dog. Yes it’s a pretty eclectic mix of stories and none of them cross over or interact with one another giving the film a very choppy narrative as each story runs for the films duration which the two cops dip in and out of as they try to sort it all out ending with a uneven denouement.
Written and directed by the notorious Uwe Boll this is his first film since retiring in 2016 but the lure of movie making has lured him back in to his usual low budget genre and the constraints of such are clear. Uneven pacing sees the film open with an almost interminable sequence of Deo preparing his breakfast ( and the film is only 90 minutes long).The script is equally uneven with clichéd lead characters and you’re setting yourself up for a fall by reviewers if you give an actor the line, ‘Tell me this isn’t some stereotypical bullshit!’
Boll has taken a fair amount of flak over the years with critics piling in on many of his films to such a degree that he offered five of them out in a boxing match as documented in, ‘Raging Boll’ and First Shift is unlikely to change any opinions of his films. Not that that will deter him as the film ends with ‘Coming soon – Part Two’
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We chatted with Uwe Boll about the film and his career…..
Here’s the First Shift trailer……
