3.5/10 A forgettable movie that largely falls flat, “Copshop” has a few redeeming qualities but not quite redeeming enough to warrant going out to see this. This is one of those movies that if you have nothing else to watch and just need to kill some time, you can watch it on a streaming service as opposed to paying your hard earned money for it in theaters. Director Joe Carnahan is a bit hit or miss and unfortunately, this falls into the “miss” category for his filmography. He also put out “Boss Level” this year which I’ve heard good things about and plan on checking out down the line. As for what Carnahan pulls off here, the second act is easily the best part of the movie as the first and third acts are bad for differing reasons. But the second act works well, the pacing is strong, the action is well done and it is refreshing to see an action movie embrace its R rating and get down and dirty with the violence and gore. While the performances do nothing more than get the job done, actor Toby Huss is the true standout of the movie as Anthony Lamb. His unhinged performance was highly entertaining and he was utterly convincing in his role. Gerard Butler doesn’t have much to do as he is stuck inside of a prison cell for the vast majority of the movie and Frank Grillo’s man bun was more distractingly memorable than his character. Although I was bummed to see Carnahan collaborator Clint Mansell not scoring this movie, the music from Clinton Shorter fit the 70s vibe that Carnahan was going for. The direction has a few moments of brilliance paired with some strong editing but that is where the positives end. The first act has a cheesy, low budget feel to it and the final act was so over the top ridiculous that it became painful to watch. There were so many little things that didn’t make sense. There is an armory where all of the weapons are stored in the police station yet there is virtually no security for the armory and the glass protecting all of it wasn’t bullet/shatter proof, making it extremely easy to smash the glass and grab weapons. That isn’t how police stations work. There also conveniently happened to full cans of gasoline inside of a construction zone which made no sense and would have been a safety hazard if anything. Characters who are heavily injured are able to keep fighting as if they haven’t been shot, which was dumb. I predicted one character’s return since they “died” off screen but it all felt so lazy and cliché. While a couple lines work, a lot of the humor fell flat for me and felt like it was trying too hard. None of our characters get any real development and by making all the white men bad but the black woman good felt like PC culture forced into the movie for no reason. Skipping this movie isn’t a bad idea unless you really need something violent to watch and it is on whatever streaming service you use but don’t waste your time seeing this on the big screen or paying separately for it.
#TheChroniclesOfViddick / #MomAndCopShop / #LawDefyingCitizen / #LambChops / #OnlyTheGoodDieValerieYoung / #YourHuberHasArrived
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