Copshop (Subtitled) (15)

Wily con artist Teddy Murretto knows that professional hitman Bob Viddick is on his trail. Travelling through the Nevada desert in a bullet-riddled Crown Vic, Teddy hatches a hare-brained plan to avoid an early grave. He attracts the attention of rookie officer Valerie Young to secure a cosy holding cell at the local police station. The scheme backfires when Viddick is placed in detention in an adjacent cell, within touching distance of his prey.

LondonNet Film Review
Copshop (15)

The Seventies are back in fashion in director Joe Carnahan’s testosterone-soaked tale of law and disorder. From its retro opening titles and funky soundtrack courtesy of composer Clinton Shorter, Copshop jives to a nostalgic beat not too far removed from the films of Quentin Tarantino, albeit without the Oscar winner’s trademark deluges of razor-sharp dialogue. Blood flows freely from close-range bullet wounds and a DIY tracheotomy in this action-packed feminist western, which subverts gender stereotypes to pleasing effect with a gun-slinging black female cop caught in the crossfire between men of tattered moral fibre…

Alexis Louder is terrifically entertaining as the quick-thinking rookie, and the only woman at her station, who proudly follows the letter of the law even if it puts her at odds with her hot-headed sergeant and fellow officers. She holds her own against action movie stalwarts Gerard Butler and Frank Grillo (both listed as producers), who trade verbal and physical blows as a hit man and con artist respectively on a collision course in the sun-scorched Nevada desert. Carnahan stages prolonged shoot-outs with verve and obligatory slow-motion to fetishise the wilful destruction of property and people. Toby Huss snags the lion’s share of humorous one-liners as a jabbering psychopath and rival assassin, who takes one disparaging look at his target’s man bun and cackles, “You look like Tom Cruise in that samurai picture that nobody watched!”

Self-anointed “high-end consultant” Teddy Murretto (Grillo) has grubby fingers in numerous pies, including the affairs of the recently murdered attorney general of Nevada. On the run from professional hit man Bob Viddick (Butler) after a car bomb fails to silence his loose lips, Teddy hatches a hare-brained scheme to dodge an early grave in the desert. He sucker punches diligent Gun Creek police officer Valerie Young (Louder) during a public fracas to secure a holding cell at the station.

The plan backfires when Viddick poses as a drunk driver and is detained in the opposite cell. “I don’t want you to think you can save yourself – because you can’t,” the hit man growls at his prey. A tense stand-off heralds a hail of bullets when rival shooter Anthony Lamb (Huss) arrives to kill Teddy. It’s only a matter of time before Lamb breaches the holding cell’s walls, forcing officer Young to contemplate a fragile alliance with Teddy and Viddick to defeat a common enemy.

Copshop is pulpy fiction that relies on wanton violence to divert attention from the occasional clunks of self-conscious dialogue in Carnahan and Kurt McLeod’s script. Louder lives up to her surname, rising above a deafening symphony of gunfire, shattering glass and deathly screams to out-manoeuvre and outshine better known co-stars. The plot twists like a cornered rattlesnake in a frenetic final act that leaves a cell door ajar for a return trip to Gun Creek.

– Jo Planter