Juego de Crimínales

Copshop

This movie got off to a very good start and then about 45 minutes in the dialogue became stilted, the acting stiff, the plot repetitive, and the scenarios contrived.

To my mind Gerald Bultler sabotaged his own movie by being desperate to engrandize his role without sufficient substance and have the last word.

The female cop played by Alexis Louder did a fine job but you "can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear".

Overall this is 5 outta 10 at best, meaning watch it on TV if you are minded.

Positives:

• While the three male leads have fun with their roles, the star of the show for me was the (unknown to me) Alexis Louder. She delivers a really strong performance here, with a confident stillness in some of her close-ups.

• There are a number of nice lines in the script, some of which made me laugh out loud, which I wasn't expecting to do.

• As a 'park your brain at the door' shoot-em-up, the ending is fun, similar in many ways I thought to the claustrophobic violence of "Free Fire".

Negatives:

• Here's YET another example of a script that is downright insulting to the audience's intelligence. There are some genuine "WTF" moments in this script. I can't go into details without dropping spoilers, but the biggest of these - you'll know it when you see it - is a genuine "HANG ON A MINUTE!!!" moment.

• The sound mix drowns out a lot of the (already drawly and indistinct) dialogue with the incessant music. It's really difficult to pick up on some of the lines.

• There's something surprisingly 'retro' about the whole movie, right down to the use of split screen at the end. The titles feel as if they were from a 70's TV show like Kojak. I could imagine this would work well... if the movie had actually been set in the 70's!

Summary Thoughts on "Copshop": There's almost a good little action film buried in here struggling to get out. Alexis Louder makes a very positive impression with the best parts of the film happening when she is verbally sparring with Butler. But a good action movie needs to keep things credible, albeit on the edge of credibility (e.g. John McClane's lift shaft fall in "Die Hard" is very much on the boundary, if a little over it). Thanks to some ludicrous decisions within the script, this one lost all credibility for me and took me right out of the story.

(For the full graphical and video reviews, please check out onemannsmovies on the web, Facebook and Tiktok. Thanks).

A comical drama that doesn't conform to expectations with an 80's presentation style, lively characters and isolated setting. It doesn't have much of a plot and it could have been a lot snappier, but the acting is good and it does hold your attention. The action scenes are few and far between and use slow motion a bit too much, but are good enough.

I was hoping for this to be a decent little thriller but I was a bit disappointed by the end. It has a good set up and scenario and the action when it hits is well portrayed, but it's overlong and just too drawn out for what it is. The snappy dialogue is too sub-Tarantino at times and there are long stretches that don't move the plot forward; in particular, the last half hour just seems to endlessly stretch out to no avail. It should have been better.

I see what they were going for here. I don't think they succeeded. If they had, this would have been my kind of movie. But something always feels off or unnatural.

For me, the movie maxes out at "pretty good," goes as low as "kind of stupid," with the bulk of the movie being mediocre. Overall, it's fine. (1 viewing, 1/30/2022)