Movie Review - Copshop

Director and co-writer Joe Carnahan has made a number of muscular thrillers or action flicks that I've enjoyed. My favorite would have to be The Grey (2012), which is a survival film where a man is put in an impossible situation and the trick is to see how he escapes or manages to live till the end, given almost insurmountable odds being stacked against him. His previous film Boss Level (2021) had a similar hook where a man was in an impossible situation, impossible for him to get out of. Yet, the film that put Carnahan on the map was Smokin' Aces (2007), which was about a mafia informant and the assassins sent to kill him, as well as the law enforcement agents trying to protect him. This new film essentially is Carnahan playing with the same premise again.

Frank Grillo (Boss Level and The Grey) stars as Teddy Murretto, the equivalent to the mafia informant in Carnahan's 2007 film. Yet, Teddy isn't just a mafia informant. He's also a thief who has stolen a lot of money from that aforementioned mafia. As such, there's not one but two hit-men or assassins sent after him. He knows it. He barely escaped twice from deadly encounters with organized crime. He comes up with an idea that he thinks will protect him. He physically assaults a police officer in Nevada. He thinks getting put in a local jail will keep him safe.

Alexis Louder (Watchmen and The Originals) co-stars as Valerie Young, the Nevada police officer whom gets assaulted. She's aware of Teddy, but she has no clue about the assassins who are after him. Unlike the other officers at their lonely police station in the desert outside Las Vegas, she's in great shape and is very well trained. She then takes it upon herself to protect Teddy, but the question is if he deserves it. This is the question she has to grapple, even as all Hell breaks loose.

And all Hell does indeed break loose. The opening of this film would seem to want to embrace that. The opening invokes the films and the aesthetics of 70's films, akin to the so-called grind-house films, emblematic of that era. Carnahan's film is more slickly made. His tone and sense of humor here aren't as juvenile or as sophomoric as Smokin' Aces. People compared Carnahan's style and sensibilities to Quentin Tarantino. He didn't really nail it in his 2007 film. He does nail it here.

Gerard Butler (Olympus Has Fallen and 300) plays Bob Viddick, one of the assassins that's after Teddy. If you didn't get the Tarantino feelings before Bob arrives, those feelings become all too clear when he does. He's very smart, very efficient. He's also a trained killer. He's quick to point out though that he's not a sociopath. He wants to make that distinction clear. Of course, that's a clue to the fact that a true sociopath will be revealed. As scary as that prospect is, Carnahan does make it funny.

What's also funny is that earlier this year Angelina Jolie did a film called Those Who Wish Me Dead (2021). It too is about two assassins trying to kill a particular person and Jolie plays the law enforcement trying to protect that person. It also included a bad-ass, Black woman who takes on the assassins. Here, Louder is that bad-ass, Black woman. Thankfully, she gets more to do and more character development than the actress in Those Who Wish Me Dead. Carnahan's film feels like it's the film that Those Who Wish Me Dead wishes it was.

Rated R for strong bloody violence and pervasive language.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 47 mins.

In theaters.