Jermaine Fowler Wants You To Feel Something When You Watch Night Patrol (Exclusive)

Jermaine Fowler in Night Patrol (RLJE/Shudder)

With a chaotic world around us, some art is created to help us break the monotony of every day life by providing an escape into any other world. Some is cerated to help us think and understand the world around us, providing necessary commentary about our state of affairs, looking deeply at ourselves and our social constructs.

Night Patrol is a film that allows the viewer to escape while providing a complex dialogue on police brutality, oppression, and the social contract. The star of the film, Jermaine Fowler, experienced the themes of this film first hand, and brought the memories and experiences with him into filming.

"My neighborhood, we've had a very awful experiences with police," he says in our conversation ahead of the film's release this Friday. "I had to watch my friend get beat up by a cop, and I just felt so helpless. It was something I was channeling a lot during filming. It wasn't an easy thing to tap into during those moments. There were moments that were pretty triggering, honestly."

The film follows Xavier Carr (Fowler), a former Crip turned LAPD officer, as he navigates his partnership with Ethan Hayworth (Justin Long), who is working to join the coveted Night Patrol squad to extract a personal vendetta. His assistance in an investigation surrounding a Crip, his brother, played by RJ Cyler, veers into the supernatural, and street enemies find themselves united in their quest to stop Night Patrol when their real mission is uncovered.

The film examines the social atmosphere of Los Angeles, where the street gangs and the LAPD have waged war with one another through decades. It's a central theme through the film, a struggle that Fowler says exists in the duality of Xavier's existence.

"Xavier is tethered between his old life and family that he's estranged from. He used to be a Crip. It was He was raised in a family full of Crips, and now he works for the police department. He wants respect from the police, but they don't respect him, and they don't want him there. He's uninvited, he's unwelcome. But it's not stopping him. He's a man with a vision, and he wants the best for his people."

Outside of his own experiences, Fowler had to do a significant amount of work to learn about the history of the LA gang scene and their war with the LAPD, including research on Rampart, the corrupt LAPD division, as well as visiting ceasefire events in South Central Los Angeles with director Ryan Prows, speaking directly with Bloods and Crips.

"I got to learn how to operate a... I think it was an AR-15. I think it was an AK-47, too. Ryan's process was very technical. I had to learn how to walk, how to put on glasses, how to operate as a LAPD police officer. They're all different. Every police department is different, and LAPD has a very particular way of doing things. I had to talk to LAPD officers about what their minds are going through during an arrest, during a shooting, during a chase, whether it's on foot, whether it's in a car or a squad car. I had to watch police body cam footage, which was very haunting. I don't advise that for anybody. It was heavy. It was probably the most difficult, daunting process, preparation, research that I've ever put myself through for a role."

Inside the layered aspects of the screenplay, Prows, along with writers Shane Ogbonna, Jake Gibson, and Tim Cairo, commingle the corrupt police force with an evil force, in this case vampires, led by the menacing Phil "CM Punk" Brooks, facing off against the connected gangs, as the Pirus, led by Freddie Gibbs, are forced to call a temporary truce with the Crips, led by the show stealing Nicki Micheaux, both groups desperate to save their neighborhoods by any means necessary.

Fowler praises Prows' choice of a grittier film approach to the movie, which allowed a deeper element of the surreal, supernatural themes to have a greater impact on the viewer, while emphasizing the tough streets of LA.

"It really was one of those things where this story is just so unique in the horror sense, in a cinematic sense, where we're really tapping into. We want that audience member to see those scenes and feel something, whether you've been a part of it in real life or not. We want people to feel something from those moments, from those situations, from those circumstances that are extremely gritty, heavy, dark, violent. That's a testament to the script because it's all rooted into the story. It's all story-driven. If you can connect to that, the writers and Ryan did their job. That's the best part about the film is that it's all connected. Every piece of the story, every character, every moment is connected to each other."

Fowler says Prows went the distance with the realism in Night Patrol, foregoing a significant amount of the normal Hollywood filming aspects and techniques in the hopes the audience would feel the realism of LA and its living, breathing, vibrant life; good, bad, or indifferent.

"If you're not familiar with LA or even having a particular experience with a police officer, we want you to feel it here. You don't necessarily need to have that to understand the because the story always came first. That was something Ryan was cognizant of when he was helming the entire project. It helped us get through. He always had an answer for our questions. It was magnificent, man, to be a part of this joint, man. I hope people really connect to it."

Fowler knew coming into the film what its potential was, what the story could tell, and how important it could be. He says he isn't sure whether they hit their mark, and by expecting anything from any project is only going to bring trouble. He says he came to the project to tell the story that needed to be told, and that's what he did.

Above all else, he says he hopes that he was useful to the narrative and that he added to the story in a meaningful way, and that the real win for him is being able to be a part of a project as nuanced as Night Patrol, one that will certainly elicit differentiating opinions due to its message.

"When people come back to me and recite or tell me what convey to me, what they believe what they connected to and what they wanted out of the story or whatever it was, whatever they interpreted from the film, that's the best part because we're all different. We all have different experiences with either police or even vampires, I hope. I can't thank people enough for seeing this film and sharing the thoughts with me because I have a different process, emotionally, mentally. My filter is different. I feel like people are all going to have a different interpretation for a film like this. That's the best part about doing a movie like Night Patrol, to be real."

Night Patrol, starring Jermaine Fowler, Justin Long, RJ Cyler, Freddie Gibbs, Nicki Micheaux, Phil "CM Punk" Brooks, and Dermot Mulroney, opens in theaters Friday, January 16th. Check your local theater listings for showtimes in your area.