Entertaining gun action

A remote police station, a detainee with unknown identity, and impending doom - sounds familiar? Yet this is no Assault-on-Precinct-13 remake, but a fresh take on this familiar stage.

It's not a deep psychological thriller, nor a triple-A action movie, not a baffling new take on known cliches.

But what it is, is: entertaining. No boredom, no groan-worthy plot holes; a pinch of over-the-top action added to good acting, with the plot a good mix of known and new elements, so it doesn't feel worn out. Solid direction and production values.

It's not a must-see; but for pure entertainment, I definitely recommend it.

Trying to watch this now and I'm not sure I can get through it. As much as I enjoy a good Gerard Butler movie, this one is really beyond believable with that idiot "rookie" cop who is suddenly tough as nails, has all the leverage of a NYC Police Commissioner, the experience of a 35-year veteran, plus she miraculously trained as a surgeon during her career in the United States Armed Forces, so she knows how to perform an emergency thoracentesis while simultaneously re-setting her Sergeant's dislocated jaw by inserting her *THUMB** (singular, although she specifically told him _"I'm going to place both my thumbs inside your mouth…"_) into his mouth. Incredibly, this was all done by a rookie who has nerves of steel and has yet to be rattled by (1) being cold-cocked by a suckerpunch, (2) being forced to hold a loaded weapon at arm's length for a number of minutes without the weapon dipping even a fraction (go ahead, try it: it's easy!), and has the seasoned smooth-talking skills of a professional hostage negotiator. Do I sound a bit biased? I'm really not…but I really, really, REALLY like my movies - yes, even the "we just want to blow stuff up and kill everything" movies - to **_at least_** seem somewhat plausible. So far (45 minutes in), this "rookie" has done everything, and has now assumed absolute utter calm and complete command of the entire station of seasoned cops, and is barking orders left and right. _"Where's my ambulance? How's his breathing? Don't let him fall asleep... Get back to me asap on that..."_ Yeahhhh.... Gerard Butler and Frank Grillo maybe, but they sure blew their reputations on this stinker. Probably a great premise that was ruined by the addition of a very unnecessary piece. Can we rewrite this and have the rookie cop get hosed by a shotgun blast instead of just suckerpunched? It would make the movie so much more enjoyable...and believable.

PS: I couldn't finish it. It was just absolutely too too too lame.

I am sometimes tempted to put Gerard Butler's recent career in the same bucket as that of Nicolas Cage and Bruce Willis, who both have been known to act in c-level schlock for a paycheck. However, looking back on Butler's filmography of late, I really think I'm not being fair to old Leonidas. While his recent films could be described as schlocky for sure, none of them are really comparable to the true garbage you might see if you watch every film that has Willis' face plastered on the poster (no offence intended, I'm sure if I was in Willis' shoes I'd do the same). In any case, this movie corrected my misjudgment. It's good. Really good in fact. With a little more money behind it, I think it actually had the potential to be great. The writing might be the stand-out here, with a set-up that is so simple and effective that, as an audience member, you are immediately excited to see how things play out. The pacing keeps that excitement building, ramping up appropriately throughout the lean runtime. While there are definitely some over-the-top/cliché elements toward the end, none of them are deal-breakers. The acting is also strong across the board. Toby Huss has a ton of fun in his role and while Gerard Butler's performance is very much on brand for him, it's a brand that he excels at and it's entertaining as ever. There's also some solid humor sprinkled in throughout.

While I wasn't able to find any info or estimate regarding the budget for this film, Joe Carnahan's previous film, Boss Level, had a reported budget of $45 million. I haven't seen that film, so I can't directly compare, but I suspect that Copshop was made for significantly less than that and unfortunately the limited budget is recognizable at various points throughout the film. Some effect work is a bit rough and the filming of certain scenes seemed detrimentally budget driven. The handful of night scenes also stood out in a bad way, all looking like they were done with a night filter of some sort (this could be a stylistic choice, but it looked odd and cheap to my eyes). Luckily, none of these issues were major enough to meaningfully detract from the film's successful elements and at the end of the day I'd recommend this to anyone looking for a solid action/thriller.

In loads of old westerns, the sheriff would ask you to leave your guns at the door - well, this requires you to do that with your brain. If you try to study it in any sort of detail, then the plot holes will sing far more loudly than Aretha Franklin (or Jennifer Hudson) could ever hope to do. If you do, though, then it is quite an efficient little shoot-em up that sees wily old Gerard Butler ("Viddick") and his prey "Murretto" (Frank Grillo) engaged in a life or death siege inside a police station with only the rookie "Valerie" (Alexis Louder) and an armour plated door between them and the mad as cheese "Lamb" (Toby Huss). Why are we in this mess? Well that becomes evident pretty quickly and as the film gathers steam, the tension builds and the last fifteen minutes provide for quite a decently paced - if rather implausible - ending. Louder takes what plaudits there are from this, she actually turns in quite a decent performance. Otherwise, it's just a good excuse to sit back and watch as we really don't care if anyone survives - except, maybe, her...