Copshop

2021, Joe Carnahan (The Grey) -- download

Of note, I might be dropping my "3 Short Paragraphs" tag for a while, not that they were ever short nor were always three. I seem to be still in the mood to ramble on, inspired from my usual ramblings during the "31 Days of Halloween".

Y'know, I might be a Carnahan fan. But unintentionally. He had a small run of Hollywood Blockbuster type movies, The A-Team and The Grey. But then he seemed to fade away a bit, and came back with Stretch, which I rather liked a lot. With that one, he seemed to find a style I am also rather fond of, that late 90s early 2000s irreverent usually violent indie movie that seems to care more about the director's vision than whether it will make bank. I respect that, even if the movies are a bit rough around the edges; like his characters. Recently, I really enjoyed  the time looper Boss Level, enough that I watched it twice.

But to be up front, I saw the trailer for Copshop without even knowing it was Carnahan, and I was onboard. A slick, silly looking Bad Guy (unrecognizable Frank Grillo, Captain America: Winter Soldier) on the run gets himself arrested by clocking a cop (Alexis Louder, Watchmen [TV]) outside a casino. Taken back to the small police station just off a highway in the middle of the desert, the arrest is watched by a thug (Gerard Butler, Greenland) who then engineers his own arrest, so as to end up in the same holding cell as Teddy, the slick guy. Bob the thug is a mob enforcer tasked with killing Teddy, but before he can do so, the police station is laid siege to by a psychopath (Toby Huss, Halt & Catch Fire) also after Teddy. 

Yes, this was all the trailer. So plot is all laid out, and the fun will come from the execution.

And fun was definitely to be had. And a bit of executing.

Usually I can see how a plot will play out, pretty much unconsciously immersed in so many tropes from so many movies, I can predict where it will go. Carnahan played me like a fiddle. We are dropped hints that Teddy might be a good guy at heart, a "fixer" for the mob but one that hates the label. We do know he ran away with some money, a LOT of money, which is why Bob is after him. But we also see he really did care about his ex-wife and his kid, constantly seeking their well-being. But Bob knows Teddy, sees through all of that. Teddy is a scumbag, a Bad Guy, and that is all. But the cop, Valerie, is us, not sure, being bounced off the two of them, even before Anthony Lamb, the psycho, shows up. It does play out exactly how I expected it would, but how it had to.

This is a violent movie, the body count is high, and the punishment met out accordingly. And yet, it again ends unexpectedly, opening room for a sequel. Butler played a little more on the side of characters I think he excels at, crass but capable. I think he might want to move his career away from playing Good Guys, as he ages down the road Neeson has traversed, and play more Bad Guys. Meanwhile, while Grillo doesn't so much step outside of form, Carnahan gave him a good amount of room to breathe in, expanding on what he can play, and I can only hope that can help him. He can only continue playing muscle bound military types for so long before he gets bored. Meanwhile, I think Huss just had a lot of fun.

Of note, a bit of disappointment. The poster and the opening sequence hinted that the movie wanted to reminisce about 70s crime movies, but that nostalgia seemed to slip away quickly. Not that I can tell you exactly what tropes make a 70s gun filled action crime movie, but you know em when you feel em.