Rent Copshop on Amazon Video (paid link)
Written by: Kurt McLeod and Joe Carnahan (screenplay by), Mark Williams and Kurt McLeod (story by)
Directed by: Joe Carnahan
Starring: Gerard Butler, Frank Grillo, Alexis Louder, Toby Huss, Chad L. Coleman
Rated: R
Watch the trailer
Plot
On the run from a lethal assassin, a wily con artist devises a scheme to hide out inside a small-town police station-but when the hitman turns up at the precinct, an unsuspecting rookie cop finds herself caught in the crosshairs.
Verdict
It's good enough to entertain, but it's not good enough to stand out. It's a prolonged stand off at a jail punctuated with actors that make this watchable and a few intense scenes. There's not quite enough here to last the duration, and that's made apparent towards the end.
It depends.
Review
The music and title sequence make this feel retro or like some kind of throwback.
A drifter, Teddy (Frank Grillo) rolls into town with the intention to get arrested. The question is why, and that only becomes more important when Bob (Gerard Butler) also intentionally gets arrested.
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| Gerard Butler plays Bob |
It's certainly a fun premise. Teddy gets arrested to protect himself from getting killed as there's a price on his head. Bob is there to collect. We wonder how Bob plans to overcome being locked in a cell. It's already a tense situation when yet another crazy killer rolls up to the jail. That doesn't even cover the dirty cop that is being blackmailed while all this plays out.
This really ramps up when Val (Alexis Louder) locks herself in the vestibule holding cell during a shootout. It's a really well done scene that drives the intensity as she's locked between two killers. This provides just enough characterization to make everyone in the jail interesting enough.
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| Alexis Louder, Frank Grillo play Val, Teddy |
It's a little bit of Assault on Precinct 13. This is a standoff that keeps getting more wild, though I do take issue with how people fly when hit with a bullet. That wouldn't happen, but this makes it so ridiculous that a single shot from a handgun sends people flying ten feet. It's comical.
It's action packed and intense, but it's a bit generic. The characters help this, but that's more the actors than it is the writing. A few too many plot elements seem tailored to the movie, such as all these cops with revolvers. There's a final stinger scene at the end that doesn't add much. It's a light and breezy mood which is a completely different tone from the rest of the movie. You want that scene to punctuate the movie, and unfortunately this one undercuts it.
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