Reviews by:
@ryan_the_nixon
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2021
director: Joe Carnahan
starring: Frank Grillo, Gerard Butler, Alexis Louder, Toby Huss, Ryan o’nan, Kaiwi Lyman, etc
On the run from a lethal assassin, a wily con artist devises a scheme to hide out inside small-town police station-but when the hitman turns up at the precinct, an unsuspecting rookie cop finds herself caught in the crosshairs. Despite some promising moments, Copshop was not good at all.
My first few positives would be the cinematography, fun set up. Great performances and likeable characters with good chemistry. And a decent mystery. The film was visually inventive and stylistic. With some clever shots that bought humour and tension to the scenes. In particular the point of view shots and use of shadows. And the film especially in the final act had some creatively shot scenes with interesting use of colour. I also thought the set up was fun. Having Frank Grillo’s character get intentionally arrested was very funny and a unique set up that got me intrigued as to how the film would develop. I also found the characters to be very likeable. Gerard, Frank, and Alexis’s characters were all charming, didn’t take no crap and all the characters bounced off each other well, all three had fantastic chemistry with each other and were a great trio. With all three performances being very good. Gerard butler in particular did a great job, this was a darker role for him, but he did really well. The big standout for me would be Alexis Louder. Her lead performance was very promising. She showed a lot of charm and charisma and delivered a passionate and intense performance. I also thought the mystery of what Teddy (Frank Grillo) did and why he was targeted was interesting and created an intrigue about his character.
However, my first few negatives would be the colour grading, pacing and unneeded conflict. As well as a lack of set up to the main plot point and tonal inconsistencies. A lot of the colour grading and lighting really bothered me in certain scenes. I could hardly see what was happening due to everything being so dark and it really bothered me when I could hardly see the characters face. The pacing of this film was painfully slow, 90% of the film was set in one location, and with such a lack of plot it was just the characters talking to each other most of the time it was bland and lacked consistent entertainment. A lot of the conflict also felt unneeded, a lot of the time the conflict wasn’t really explained so all the characters were doing was constantly shouting at each other and it gave me a headache. There was also a complete lack of set up to the main plot point, there should have been more plot to this movie. It was so thinly written because there was this big mystery around why Teddy was being targeted that hardly got answered at all, this was just lazy writing. The film was completely tonally inconsistent. At times it was trying to be serious and then it throwed loads of attempted jokes and this would often clash with what was happening in a lot of scenes, it just felt like the film didn’t know what it wanted to be.
My final few positives would be the use of gore, good dialogue, and fun twists. as well as an entertaining final act. The use of gore within the action scenes was effective, it gave a lot of shock factor as so many characters were killed off and gave the film a needed edge to it. I thought the dialogue was strong for a lot of the film. It was cleverly written and played on genre tropes well and delivered some needed laughs thanks to the delivery from the actors involved. The twists in the film were solid. As the film revealed all the different parties that were targeting Teddy including dirty cops it kept the plot mostly entertaining and increased the stakes for the characters. Finally, the final act was very entertaining. They finally picked up the action and the last half an hour or so was thrilling and intense and got me questioning what was going to happen, so the film redeemed itself slightly and there were definitely some shocking moments I didn’t see coming.
My final few negatives would be the lapses in the logic, dumb characters and predictable set up for scenes. As well as the lack of character depth and the humour falling flat. This film had so many unrealistic scenes where characters survived for way longer than what they should have and it got to a point in certain scenes where it just got ridiculous, or they would make it seem like a character was dead and then they suddenly weren’t, and it was just jarring. I also thought there was just dumb characters and predictable set up for scenes. These cops were dumb and it’s as simple as that, the scenes where they would die were painfully predictable and the script was lazily written and took the surprise out of their deaths. There was also a complete lack of character depth, the characters were extremely one dimensional and were type casted as one specific thing. There was so much time to add a lot more to the characters, but they just didn’t add anything to them, so it made it difficult to connect with them. Finally, the humour for the film was just bad. It was very awkward as the film was trying so hard but pretty much none of the jokes landed.
Overall, Copshop has great performances and a promising lead with Alexis Louder. Good chemistry between the cast and a fun final act. But it doesn’t stop the film from being lazily written, poorly structured and tonally all over the place. And it was just bland and forgettable. Never taking advantage of its fun premise.
Overall score 42/100
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