Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Copshop’ on VOD, a Wickedly Funny Carnahan-Grillo Joint That Flops Over the Finish Line

Now on VOD, Copshop is a post-Tarantino action-crime-comedy that became one of the year’s most unexpected cinematic controversies when star Frank Grillo publicly revealed his disappointment in the finished product. He said his well-considered performance was all chopped up, adding that it wasn’t the fault of his frequent creative collaborator, director Joe Carnahan. Oddly, the director himself has been strangely quiet about the film, which, beyond perpetuating the sweet and tender Carnahan-Grillo artist-muse lovefest, has a lot going for it — pulpy ’70s vibes, a breakout performance by star-on-the-rise Alexis Louder and an amusing bad-guy turn for Gerard Butler, who, after Greenland, has now made two pretty good movies in a row, a new record for him. (Does this mean we’re in the midst of a post-Geostorm BUTLERNAISSANCE? God I hope so.) Yes, I just review-spoiler’d myself. Despite the poopstorm surrounding it, Copshop ain’t half bad, and here’s why.

COPSHOP: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Sun Creek City, Nevada. We’ve got a cop, Val Young (Louder), who carries a Ruger revolver that’s so big, it looks custom-made for the Hulk. We’ve got a slimy con artist, Teddy Murretto (Grillo), who just got himself arrested by Young, on purpose. And then we’ve got Bob Viddick (Butler), a contract assassin who also gets himself arrested on purpose, because he knows Murretto got himself arrested on purpose, therefore making it easier for him to kill Murretto. I’m not sure I know or remember why Murretto is on the hit list, maybe because he’s slimy and always gets away with shit and got away with shit at the expense of a very bad person, or somehow involved with the murder of Nevada’s attorney general, a subplot stirrling in the background. The why may not even be important, because merely hanging out with these people, who tend to say funny things back and forth to each other, is pretty entertaining.

There are some other cops in the shop, most notably Mitchell (Chad L. Coleman), the sarge in charge, and Huber (Ryan O’Nan), the smudge on the credibility of local law enforcement, and you can tell he’s a turd at first glance, because he’s damp, and morally compromised guys like him always look like they’ve got an industrial-grade case of the meatsweats. Officer Young is, as they say, the movie’s paragon of virtue — whip-smart, confident, takes no shit, has a quick draw, does the right thing, will perform an emergency tracheotomy on a guy even though he’s a total douche. She rules.

So Officer Young finds herself caught in the Murretto-Viddick grudge, and when you factor in Huber and the arrival of a second assassin, Anthony Lamb (Toby Huss), we’ve got a perfect storm of crap going down at Sun Creek City Police HQ. Quips fly as fast as the bullets, bodies hit the tile, debates about the definition of deja vu occur during some “Alamo bullshit” that inevitably occurs — you know the drill, and you know it’s gonna get even violenter than it was before, and you know it’s gonna come down to the last bullet, and you know nobody’s gonna mistake this thing for the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: There’s a lot of Reservoir Dogs and Attack on Precinct 13 in Copshop’s blood that splatters and spills and pools everywhere.

Performance Worth Watching: Louder anchors the movie with her charisma, and Butler nails a speech in which he splits a hair to differentiate between professional killers and psychopaths. But it’s the psycho who steals scenes with glee: Huss is the wacknut acting as an adrenaline shot for the movie, carrying a deadly mini-Uzi and dressing down the Grillo character for his man-bun: “One of male grooming’s greatest misfires… you look like Tom Cruise in that samurai movie nobody watched.”

Memorable Dialogue: The David Mamet Everybody Needs Money, That’s Why They Call It Money Award goes to the following exchange:

Officer Kimball: What’s got you so curious?

Officer Huber: Curiosity.

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: FIRST THINGS F—IN’ LAST: The ending of Copshop sucks. It’s hacked up for barbeque. It douses logic with gasoline and tosses it a match. If it were any more confused, it’d be Homer Simpson taking a calc exam. For much of the movie, it seemed like Grillo’s beef with the final cut lowered expectations to the point where the damn thing was actually highly enjoyable, but it turns out he was right on target with his criticisms. It feels like a movie compromised by editing-room meddling. The dead-AG subplot slams head-on into the tunnel Wile E. Coyote painted on the rock face; characters either seem to rise from the dead or are dispatched with a shameful lack of ceremony; and it trots out three climactic scenes which are little more than a jumble of dead endings.

I’m not going to foolishly assert that Carnahan is a visionary — his work exists firmly in the post-Tarantino universe of genre worship and ’70s pastiche, and there’s nothing wrong with that. He’s a strong visual stylist with an ear for crackling dialogue. Stuff like Narc and The Grey are terrific movies on their own terms, and to a certain point so is Copshop, with its clever-sniper script, colorful characters, hardboiled plot and Black lady cop cutting through a lot of white-guy bullroar with her wit, conscience and a pistol that’s bigger than thou. It’s quick to inspire laughter, and cynically violent in an amusing, ’90s, politically incorrect sort of way. Maybe it has something to say about the nature of people who don’t uphold their end of a bargain, or maybe it has something to say about the nature of violent action movies, but even if it has nothing much on its mind at all, it still has a reason to exist, namely, to distract and entertain audiences. And that’s why it’s worth a watch, despite its faults.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Copshop is too much fun for too long, so steering anyone away from it would be disingenuous. Also, #ReleaseTheGrilloCarnahanCut!

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Where to stream Copshop