‘Night Shift’ Confronts Multiple Ethical Dilemmas

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Night Shift follows three police officers: Virginie, Erik, and Aristide. After volunteering for overtime, the trio is tasked with escorting an illegal immigrant to the airport. What could go wrong?

The movie (which also goes by the title Police) is currently being shown at the Alliance French Film Festival in Australia. The pace is a little slower than I’d imagined, particularly at the beginning. There is a story being told, but there’s more going on than what you’re seeing on the screen.

Night Shift raises many interesting questions. What does it mean to be a “good” police officer? Is it possible to keep your morality intact while following orders? Is dehumanization just one of many coping mechanisms used within such a psychologically distressing career? But the question I want to ask is: Does Night Shift effectively tackle the societal issues it leans on so heavily?

This post contains MAJOR spoilers!

An Overview of Night Shift

Let’s use the synopsis as a platform through which to bring Night Shift’s societal questions into the spotlight. The movie essentially follows four characters: Virginie (Virginie Efira), Erik (Grégory Gadebois), Aristide (Omar Sy), and Asomidin Tohriov (Payman Maadi). The first three are officers escorting the latter to the airport for deportation. Each is facing their own personal crisis.

We explore the story through dialogue and flashbacks. There aren’t police chases or anything akin to The Departed, just to warn you. Night Shift tells a slow-paced story that brings our attention to real problems that exist in the world today. Virginie, for example, deals with sexism from her colleagues, members of the public, and the system in general. A problem that appears heightened due to pregnancy. This comes with added stress due to the unborn child’s father being her colleague, Aristide, not her husband. Erik’s inability to cope with the stresses of the job makes his constant battle with alcoholism and tobacco addiction evermore challenging. His fractured marriage (to a pill-addicted wife) only exacerbates the situation. Aristide struggles with PTSD and anxiety while trying to maintain the perception of masculinity that others hold to him.

These three officers, in a bid to avoid returning home, volunteer for overtime. The task is simple: deliver Asomidin Tohriov to the airport for deportation. On the way, details emerge about what may await Tohriov in his home, Tajikistan. His traumatic and torturous ordeal leaves the officers with a moral dilemma: Do they allow him to escape? Or do they deliver him as planned, sending him home to God knows what?

Overall, Night Shift is a movie about morality, blame, consequences, and responsibility.

Night Shift Asks Real Questions

Although the plot revolves around escorting Tohriov, Night Shift leans heavily into its thematic elements. It sets up many important ideas worthy of discussion. Sexism, morality, mental health (including addiction), humanity, and the idea of “good” policing, to name a few. However, it often feels like it spread itself too thin. With a runtime of just 99 minutes, is it possible to delve into all these topics effectively?

Within the first few moments, the movie presents characters with problems in these areas. The psychological impact of handling cases of abuse, from a husband abusing his wife to a mother who “accidentally” kills her son while “teaching him a lesson”. This touches on the overarching theme of the movie: Police officers are human, just like the rest of us. Do they remove their emotions from traumatic situations by dehumanizing those involved, or do they embrace their humanity and suffer moral accountability? Each officer copes with the job differently.

It’s difficult to decide whether Night Shift simply fails to deliver or is actually an artistic masterpiece. The issues it raises are minimally fleshed out and rarely reach any sort of resolution. This should be a flaw, but it could also be the perfect reflection of our society. I can’t possibly dive into each one of these areas, so I’ll focus on two to explain my point.