Notorious film director Uwe Boll is back, baby, from his semi-retirement. Not only that, he has stumbled upon a hit, something decidedly uncommon in the man’s multi-decade independent filmmaking career, especially since he faded from the outer rings of the studio system in the late 2000s. I’m writing this after the release of 2026’s Citizen Vigilante, another surprisingly popular movie for Boll, though popular with the worst people and for the worst reasons. I was unaware that Boll had shed his retirement, so now I’m catching up with some of his latest films, and 2024’s First Shift was his return splash. It’s a cop drama actually filmed in New York City, a bit of a change for the more threadbare and mercenary director. However, when this little movie debuted on streaming for Paramount Plus, it opened as the number two movie and stayed in the streamer’s top ten for an astonishing twenty weeks, nearly half a year. Clearly, this movie caught on with audiences and Boll has already planned two more installments, as well as a potential First Shift TV series. When I read this information I pumped my fist, not necessarily cheering for Boll’s success, not that I have anything against the man’s fortunes improving, but because all through my watch of First Shift I kept remarking, “This feels like Boll’s attempt at a cop show.” Lo and behold, that might have just been the plan all along, and considering Paramount is the home of a plethora of CBS long-running crime procedurals with little variation in their formula comforts, he might have struck gold.

The plot is fairly simple. Veteran cop Detective Deo Russo (Gino Anthony Pesi) likes to be alone, and then he gets assigned a new partner, Angela Dutton (Kristen Renton). He’s grumpy and cynical and she’s sunshine and optimism. He likes to keep to himself and she’s an open book, to go with her non-stop chatter. Over the course of their first shift, they’ll spend twelve hours traversing New York City, resolving various crimes including a mob hit and a personal episode of violence with Dutton’s family.

After 29 Boll movies and counting under my watch, I must say that, to my full academic analysis, First Shift is actually mostly enjoyable. To a point. I’ll get to that later with some significant spoilers over the last twenty minutes. However, this is a crime thriller that eschews a sense of gritty realism for something far more breezy and light-hearted without being too flip or glib. The pervading feeling of the movie is just something familiar and nice, a soothing balm that tells you even when the officers are confronting a literal knife-wielding maniac, that things aren’t going to get too heavy. This is a world of cops and officials that seems ripped from the cozy confines of the network TV procedural, the world of NCIS, Bones, In Plain Sight, Castle, Hawaii Five-O, Monk. The crimes are never too grisly and the overall tone of the show is mirthful and suffused with bickering and snappy banter (“This city is my new home,” with the ready reply, “Your new home smells like piss.”) from a bunch of professionals more prone to rolling their eyes than getting into fistfights. It’s a distorted reality that’s ready-made for comfort viewing, and it mostly works. I enjoyed the introduction of the team from the typically been-there-seen-it-all boss, Lieutenant Walden (Tia Dionne Hodge), whose wisecracks actually got me to chuckle. I appreciated the unpredictable areas the banter could head, including both officers trying their best to define what a sexual act was named after a particularly popular Little Debbie treat could be. Most of all, I appreciated that Boll understood the tone he wanted and implemented it from the start. It’s such a light, pleasant feeling that I found my attention drifting, not because I was bored but because it was a familiar sensation that put me at ease.

That doesn’t mean everything snapped together with precision. For a movie just under 90 minutes, it feels a little stretched to get to that running time. The opening three minutes are devoted to watching Russo’s morning routine including making a protein shake. I kept waiting for some added detail, like he’s sneaking booze into his shake’s recipe, but alas, it was just a protein shake. There’s plenty of moments in the car with the cops that just feel like Boll was riding in the back and said, “Go on and improv,” and they just riffed for ten minutes and he cobbled together his favorite bits. It’s an ongoing impression throughout the movie, with scenes feeling a bit more loping in their rhythms, allowing certain scenes to feel aimless, drifting past the point being established. I didn’t mind so much because the stakes were low and the vibes were pleasant, but it did feel padded. Do we need to see an old man walking down the store aisles so extensively before he’s ultimately attacked? If this was designed in the TV procedural format, there would be a brevity to some of these plot points. I did find the behavior of Dutton to be a bit of a reach at points. Her posting of TikToks live from the station seemed rather unprofessional and something she’d be dinged for. It gives the impression of someone unfamiliar with the restraints of police work, which made me initially think Dutton wasn’t a transplanted cop from Atlanta but some civilian riding along for research, like with Castle, before that show long exhausted the premise of why a mystery novelist would be so indispensably integrated in the L.A. police force. The larger mob plot is also muddled, as there is an introductory scene establishing our Bad Guy getting back against an underling who betrayed him. However, before the end of the movie, this Bad Guy is hastily removed to introduce a different Bad Guy Boss. If this was the case, why didn’t we just begin with the man at the top if he’s the one who actually matters?

Unfortunately, the last twenty minutes of First Shift are a sharp  tonal disconnect that seriously harms the good vibes of the movie, and one that requires extensive spoilers, so if you seriously care about whether or not a Uwe Boll movie experience will be pure for you, skip ahead to the next paragraph, dear reader. Earlier in the movie we get a couple quick flashes of a bearded man growing in agitation. He seems to have some substance abuse issues and the deterioration of his marriage. It isn’t until the final act that his storyline really surfaces with clarity. This man happens to be Dutton’s brother, an Iraq War veteran suffering from PTSD and drinking. His wife is preparing to leave him and take away her son, his stepson, so what’s a mentally unstable man to do? He blames the stepson for poisoning the relationship with his wife, pushing her to leave, and he throttles the child and suffocates him with a pillow. He then also kills his wife and himself. Take a minute to catch your breath, reader. That’s a lot, and especially for a movie that had an entire storyline about taking care of an elderly man’s dog while he recuperates and tricking their commanding officer into buying the dog’s lavish lunch. This murder-suicide family annihilator plot is far too dark and serious for a movie that, thus far, had been more whimsical and light. It completely crashes the tone of the movie. It’s an attempt by Boll to trauma-bond his two lead characters, but it really feels more like a trauma dump for the audience. Both of the cops just blurt out their feelings and personal failings at high volume, speeding over the character development that should unite them. It’s clunky. It’s also an unwelcomed and miserably dour turn for a movie that cannot support that level of dire realism.

In the final minutes of First Shift, it cuts to additional footage and promises a Part Two, kind of like the end of Kevin Costner’s Horizon: Part One previewing a trailer for its forthcoming Part Two. We still have never gotten Horizon: Part Two and it’s been two years and counting since it was pulled from the release calendar. I don’t know if this was always the plan or Boll was adding an additional tease to capitalize on the unexpected groundswell of audience interest. In October 2025, Boll had officially wrapped New York City filming for the two sequels, titled First Shift: Vengeance and First Shift: Redemption, which seems a shame because Second Shift and Third Shift were right there. The TV series is still in development. In replicating the familiar, low-stakes, ensemble character workplace cop procedural, Boll might have stumbled upon a new echelon of success for his career. If he can reassert the tone that made the movie a successful if disposable innocuous cop procedural in movie form, then I think the First Shift sequels could be modestly entertaining. However, if the shocking downturn that the film takes in its climax is an indication of the direction ahead, then the good vibes might be dead after all. Still, for the man’s return to the world of cinema, First Shift is a cut above for Dr. Boll.

Nate’s Grade: C+