While Gerard Butler and Frank Grillo share top-billing on this Joe Carnahan co-scripted and directed action crime caper, the star of the show is Alexis Louder – seen most recently in The Tomorrow War and true story Harriet. Here, she plays the cop trapped between a mob swindler and a ruthless killer in a rather enjoyable action flick, full of cartoonish rogues, and bullet-ridden bloody carnage all confined within the four walls of a Nevada police station.
Butler continues his recent run of turning in rather enjoyable performances that really started a few years ago with the lower-budget The Vanishing, a mystery set on a remote Scottish island, and then a third, very good sequel in the ‘…Has Fallen’ series, Angel Has Fallen, and then last year’s surprisingly good disaster epic Greenland. Here, he’s one of a bunch of people who operate on the wrong side of the law as Bob Viddick, a hitman on the trail of Grillo’s con artist Teddy Murretto. We join the action as Teddy is apprehended by the police in the Nevada desert after punching Louder’s police officer Valerie Young, and then subsequently taken to the nearby ‘copshop’ of the title where he is thrown in jail. Cut back to Viddick who has learned of Teddy’s arrest and location who manages to get himself thrown into the same cell block after faking a drunken crash on a nearby highway. The two foes face off within the walls of the police department with Val stuck in the middle of it all, not only surrounded by the two villains, but also bent coppers and competing killers also after Teddy’s head on a plate.
Copshop starts off with a bang – quite literally – and Carnahan and co-writer Kurt McLeod wasting no time in throwing us into the action. There’s a big sequence at a remote casino where a wedding has properly kicked off – the location where Teddy is initially apprehended. From there, we muddle through a little exposition as the screenwriters focus on explaining the story so far, and it is here where things to slow down. However, once you muddle through this and the characters become fewer and fewer – mostly down to the introduction of Toby Huss’s scene-stealer psychopathic hitman Anthony Lamb – the pace picks up again making for a much more enjoyable second half.
If you’ve any of Carnahan’s later films, particularly the ensemble action piece Smokin’ Aces – which almost could be set in the same universe – then you’ll know what you’re in for here. There’s lots of carnage, tons of violence, but it is presented in a very high spirited way that’s hard not to enjoy. It’s all morally ambiguous stuff, and early on, it’s not clear who should be rooting for, though I guess that is the point. Clue: It’s Val. As, I said, as much as Butler and Grillo are excellent, this is Louder’s film and she shines in every scene.
It’s clear the kinds of films the filmmakers were influenced by in the making of the movie. It looks and feels like a classic western, mixed with a little Carpenter ala Assault Of Precinct 13… and then some. With this year’s other Grillo team-up Boss Level, which can now be found on Amazon, Copshop is a return to proper form for Carnahan, landing most blows in a fun-loving, high octane crime flick, full of jaw dropping action-packed set pieces. This is the tone, and indeed a genre of film he’s clearly very comfortable with. That remake of The Raid looks promising if this is what he can deliver when let loose.
Copshop is now playing in cinemas.
Copshop
Summary
Very violent, though playful in its approach. A stand-out performance by Alexis Louder and solid turns from Butler and Grillo make this a very entertaining action movie.
