I won’t lie but I’m a huge fan of cop shows—I’ve seen them all, from Brooklyn Nine-Nine to The Good Cop to Law & Order. So, when I started watching Uwe Boll’s movie First Shift, I had high hopes, especially since the movie is set in New York, with all its hustle and bustle. Although it doesn’t give us the intense criminal chases you might expect, it offers a deeper look into the story of Detective Deo, who gets paired up with a new detective in the precinct, Angela. They’re polar opposites in personality, but they eventually grow to respect each other as they tackle a series of cases on Angela’s first day as Deo’s partner. How did they manage to handle it all? That’s what I am about to explore in First Shift’s explainer as I take a closer look at how her first shift went.
Spoilers Ahead
How did Angela prove Deo wrong?
When Angela first joined the NYPD from Atlanta as a detective, she got paired up with Detective Deo Russo. As you might guess, Deo wasn’t thrilled about it. Deo had always been a bit of a loner, used to working alone, so the idea of having a partner didn’t sit well with him. Plus, Angela was chatty and always on her phone who posted updates about her work and everything she was doing. That wasn’t exactly Deo’s style, but he didn’t have much of a choice. Angela, who’s into her gluten-free, healthy lifestyle, couldn’t help but judge Deo for his coffee and bagel routine. But even though they were different, Deo slowly started to enjoy having her around.
Actually, life hadn’t been easy for Deo. He’d been through a rough divorce after his wife cheated on him, and he fell into a deep depression, especially after losing his daughter, Ava, to a heart condition. Being alone and throwing himself into his work was how he coped. But now Angela was the complete opposite—open, unapologetic, and always sharing every detail of her life. Somehow, this kept Deo entertained. Angela became a detective about a year and a half ago, and she was pretty open about her past. Angela shared how her husband had not only cheated on her but also secretly got a vasectomy so they wouldn’t have kids. When Angela found out, she left him right away. Now, Angela is glad to be in a new city. Even though there are challenges she was happy to be there.
She saw herself as a girl boss, single, confident, and ready to take on the world. But we see that as they were chatting away, they got a call about a possible stabbing—a man with a meat cleaver was threatening to cut off his own hand. Deo took charge by insisting he drive because he didn’t quite trust Angela yet, especially in a high-pressure situation like this.
When Deo and Angela arrived at the scene, Deo told Angela to stay in the car while he handled it. It was clear Deo felt responsible for protecting her, maybe because it was Angela’s first day, or maybe because she was a woman, and he didn’t want anything bad to happen to her. Angela, at first, followed his orders by staying put as Deo tried to calm the man down. But when the situation escalated and it became clear that the man was about to harm himself, Angela didn’t just sit there. Even though Angela initially followed her partner’s orders, when the situation escalated and the man was about to harm himself and Deo couldn’t calm him down, Angela approached from behind and used a taser to make the man fall to the ground. This allowed them to arrest him and get him the medical help he needed. It seemed that Angela wasn’t as naive as Deo had believed. She proved him wrong, and of course, she was feeling quite proud of herself.
What are the cases Deo and Angela handled that day?
After Angela and Deo brought the man with the wounded hand to the hospital, they met another patient named Willy. Willy had lost consciousness while shopping at a supermarket and was now stuck in the hospital. He pleaded with Deo to look after his dog, which he had tied up outside the supermarket before being rushed to the hospital. Deo could have easily brushed off this request, but he didn’t. Instead, he went to the supermarket, found the dog, and initially took it to an animal shelter as he thought they could care for it for a week. But when he saw the poor condition of the shelter, he just couldn’t leave the dog there. So, he decided he would take care of the dog himself until Willy got back on his feet. Turns out, Deo wasn’t as cold as he seemed—he was a big softy deep down. Later, Deo got another call from the precinct about a possible shooting. When he arrived at the scene, he discovered that the shooters had already fled and left behind a tragic mess—a father, Logan, and his son, both dead.
Logan had been deep in debt and sold something he wasn’t supposed to, which angered a bunch of gangsters. In retaliation, the gang sent men, Jack and Jim, to threaten him, but they got angry and ended up killing his son first and then the father. But the shooters made a mistake; their gang leader had strictly forbidden them from harming women and children. So, after they killed the father and son, the leader shot the shooters Jack and Jim for disobeying orders. Even though they could not catch the shooters that day, a few days later, Angela and Deo figured out what had happened. As if things hadn’t been chaotic enough, Angela received a call from her brother, Paul. She knew something was wrong, so she and Deo rushed to see him. What they found was devastating. Paul had committed suicide after killing his partner and her young son, Danny. Paul, a veteran with PTSD from his time in Iran, had struggled with drug addiction. He had hoped that being in love with his partner would help him get better, but he relapsed. His partner and her son saw how unstable Paul had become, and decided to leave. But Paul, who had been abandoned all his life, couldn’t handle the thought of losing them, so he killed them before taking his own life. It was a tragic and unexpected end to Angela and Deo’s first shift together—something neither of them could have ever imagined.
But there was a bright side to the story. After all the chaos of that first day, Deo started to feel something he hadn’t in a long time—he felt good about having a partner to help him solve the city’s crimes. This partnership with Angela was slowly helping the stubborn, closed-off man he had become. For the first time in years, he found himself opening up, talking about his feelings, and genuinely trying to be better. By the end of the movie, when Deo returned Willy’s dog, he didn’t just hand it back and walk away. Instead, he asked Willy if he could take the dog on walks from time to time, because looking after the dog had been good for him. It was a sign that keeping everything bottled up inside was doing him more harm than good, and he was finally ready to change his situation.
In First Shift’s ending, Deo went to visit his daughter’s grave on her birthday. But this time, he wasn’t alone. He and Angela went together. Looked like they were ready to take on the day together – it was a blessing in disguise after all.
