There is no mistaking a Joe Carnahan movie and when it stars Frank Grillo and Gerard Butler, well then, all the better. The helmer who gave us The A-Team and The Grey returns with a shoot-em-up thriller that primarily takes place in a rural Nevada police station with the two lead actors on a collision course whose reason is kept quiet until absolutely necessary to drive the dramatic power of the narrative.
Grillo is Teddy Murretto, and he is a con artist on the wrong side of some very bad people. We meet him speeding away from Vegas in a bullet-ridden police Crown Vic before it finally dies. Hot on his tail is Bob Viddick (Butler) a lethal hitman. To get himself incarcerated, he sucker punches a local rookie cop, Valerie Young (Alexis Louder), to be locked up and far away from the lethal stare of Viddick.
Guess again. Wonder who impersonated an overly inebriated fellow to get locked up in the cell directly across from Murretto? You guessed it. The killer himself. Caught in the crossfire of this mental and action-laden thriller is the local police in that rural station outside Las Vegas. Particularly drawn into the action is a stellar Louder as Young. Her rookie may be inexperienced but her innate sense of justice and desire for survival is a match for these two thugs with crosshair eyes directed at each other.
Although it primarily takes place in the confines of a holding cell prison in a Nevada police station, Copshop has a scope that is hard to ignore. What is going on in those cells reaches far beyond the locale from with they both sit. Also impressive is how screenwriter Kurt McLeon and Carnahan combined on a screenplay that gives the law enforcement residents of this outpost and other souls a three-dimensional characterization that each one inhabits with panache. One, in particular, is Ryan Onan as Huber. He is a complicated individual whose personality would be all too easy to judge from appearance alone. As the actor plays him, there is a real inner battle going on that is right at the surface.
Louder is a find. The way she has to navigate this disaster that has become her night with two opposing evil forces begging for her aid. It challenges her to dig deep and express much with both her lines and her ultimate actor’s tool—her body. She is tough as nails and that not only comes through in her performance but in how she carries Young. Yes, she is a rookie. But, in the way that Louder inhabits her, there is no doubt this is a woman who has chosen a profession that was the one she was put on this earth to fulfill and succeed.
In the end, this is Grillo and Butler’s show and they put on a wild west good time for those who enjoy this type of cinematic entertainment. With Carnahan as their circus master, this is a bullet-laden trip through a Nevada desert police department where even whether the cops are good or bad comes into question. It’s a fast-paced film experience that satisfies just as you would expect. Nothing more, nothing less, and that is something that Carnahan does better than anyone working in his generation.
Grillo is a star waiting for a breakout role to cement his status. Copshop may not do it, but let’s just say this, it is another spoke in the wheel of awesomeness that is the actor. His turn in The Purge movies and even in the MCU is the stuff of legend and his solid character work makes him one of the more enigmatic actors working today. Put it this way, if he’s in the film, it gets a viewing by this writer. His performance alone will be worth the price of admission.
Butler, on the other hand, is having quite a year. With his turn in the recent Greenland, he has found himself a nice career niche and what he tackles in Copshop contributes to that greatly. This is a role custom fit for the Scottish actor and he plays it to aplomb. He never goes over the top, although that would have been an easy temptation. Probably some of that credit goes to his director, whose working relationship with the actor is obviously sublime. Let’s be real, though. Butler is a veteran of all sorts of genres of movies and witnessing him as a cold-blooded killer for hire should not surprise. But what he does with the role will certainly achieve do that.
Grade: B