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In one of the more effective scenes in “Copshop,” a hitman, played with psychotic geek gusto by Toby Huss (rocking a Ben Davidson mustache), strolls into a desert police station in Nevada carrying a bouquet of birthday balloons. He kills several cops, and he ends up walking down a hall blasting away — with a snub-barreled submachine gun that spits out bullets with raw fire — at a door made of bullet-proof glass. Behind the door stands Officer Valerie Young (Alexis Louder), flecked with beads of grace-under-pressure sweat as she tries, like someone in a countdown-to-the-apocalypse thriller, to reset the password that will allow her to enter the adjacent room. The director, Joe Carnahan, cuts between the bullets blazing and the password resetting, and the gonzo ballistic relentlessness of it all is…entertaining.

“Copshop,” in its down-and-dirty way, doesn’t always make up its mind about what it wants to be: underworld character study,...

Big, bombastic and filled with non-stop action scenes, Boss Level is the type of weekend entertainment that demands to be seen on movie theater screens. Unfortunately, most cinemas across the United States are still closed. So director Joe Carnahan has taken his time loop masterwork to Hulu, where it will premiere this Friday, March 5. And it's sure to be an instant favorite amongst action fans and sci-fi aficionados alike. We recently caught up with Joe Carnahan to talk about Boss Level and all the fun that comes along with it.

Joe Carnahan made his directorial debut with the 1998 comedy crime thriller Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane, which instantly put him on the action map. He followed that up with the 2002 hit Narc and never looked back. The filmmaker has since made such hits as Smokin' Aces, The A-Team, Laim Neeson's The Grey, and Stretch. Boss Level arrives as his first...

A gritty Los Angeles crime drama that (very) slowly becomes a kind of “Batman in the barrio,” Ben Hernandez Bray’s “El Chicano” seldom amounts to anything more than a crude prototype for the kind of Latinx-driven superhero movies that Marvel and DC should already be making by now. Maybe, if Hollywood didn’t so consistently underrepresent the country’s most significant audience of non-white moviegoers, Bray would have been able to scrounge up more than $7 million for his chintzy-looking debut. Maybe, if backwards industry logic didn’t require people of color to substantiate their own existence, this cheesy (but ultra-violent) vigilante saga might’ve been more than a proof-of-concept for an idea that never should have needed one in the first place (Bray and producer Joe Carnahan were forced to finance the film with Canadian oil money after local investors large and small balked at the idea of an all-Latinx cast).

As it stands,...

Joe Carnahan likes to make macho Guns-and-Violence movies -- "Narc" and "Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane" -- but in his third feature as a writer-director, he finds himself at a crossroads: He either will find an original voice or be content to ape yesterday's trends in the G&V genre. If he pursues the avenue of "Smokin' Aces," he is, discouragingly, headed down the latter path. While the film bristles with cinematic verve, it also is as second-hand as an antique store. The elements that come together here are far too easily identified: Huge, bloody chunks of Quentin Tarantino, the slickster moves of "Ocean's Eleven" and "Ocean's Twelve," the double-barreled visual assault of early Guy Ritchie and the plot twists of "The Usual Suspects".

In these interlocking tales of cops, hit men and mobsters, Universal definitely has a playable film for males 25 and under. But looking past the grosses, which could potentially go as high as $40 million, Carnahan's career seems to be moving away from his early promise. His first two films played Sundance; this one is strictly Salt Lake City.

The whole thing comes down to one gag: In the tradition of Nevada poker tournaments, "Aces" brings a collection of characters to a casino hotel in Lake Tahoe. However, these are not card sharks but rather a hit parade of outrageous assassins working as teams or solo acts. Seems a mob boss (Joseph Ruskin) has taken out a $1 million contract on sleazy illusionist Buddy "Aces" Israel (Jeremy Piven). Aces is ensconced in a penthouse at the Nomad Casino while his manager negotiates a deal with the FBI deputy director (Andy Garcia) to turn state's evidence against the mob.

So Carnahan gives us a rogue's gallery of sociopaths in competition for that cool $1 million: neo-Nazi brothers (Chris Pine, Kevin Durand, Maury Serling), who display a fondness for chain saws; two feminist hit ladies (Alicia Keys and Taraji Henson), righteous sisters in the struggle against male dominance of action flicks; a master of disguises (Tommy Flanagan); a master of exquisitely painful deaths (Nestor Carbonell); and an out-of-his-element bail bondsman (Ben Affleck) and two pals (Peter Berg, Martin Henderson). Ace's only protection comes from a couple of stalwart FBI agents (Ryan Reynolds, Ray Liotta) and a distracted hotel security staff.

Like all good multicharacter operas of mayhem, everyone gets an aria to demonstrate his bloody abilities. While these episodes lack the wit and intelligence of Tarantino -- well, Carnahan begs for the comparison to be made -- they do not lack visceral impact. On the positive side, these showdowns feature mostly superior stunt work rather than special effects.

One question hovers over the carnage, though: Whom the hell are we supposed to root for? The closest the movie comes to sympathetic assassins are its hit ladies, yet the payoff to their subplot is the weakest of the bunch.

A hot soundtrack and percussive editing drive the picture, which cinematographer Mauro Fiore shoots in saturated colors. Mary Zophres is allowed to go crazy with her costumes for her ghetto-fabluous hit babes, neo-Nazi fast-change artists and the other hep hitmen.

SMOKIN' ACES

Universal Pictures

Universal Pictures in association with

StudioCanal and Relativity Media presents a Working Title production

Credits:

Screenwriter-director: Joe Carnahan

Producers: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner

Executive producers: Robert Graf, Liza Chasin

Director of photography: Mauro Fiore

Production designer: Martin Whist

Music: Clint Mansell

Costume designer: Mary Zophres

Editor: Robert Frazen

Cast:

Jack Dupree: Ben Affleck

Stanley Locke: Andy Garcia

Georgia Sykes: Alicia Keys

Donald Carruthers: Ray Liotta

Buddy "Aces" Israel: Jeremy Piven

Richard Messner: Ryan Reynolds

"Pistol" Pete Deeks: Peter Berg

Sharice Watters: Taraji Henson

Darwin Tremor: Chris PineRunning time -- 108 minutes

MPAA rating: R...