Joe Carnahan Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘Not Without Hope,’ starring Zachary Levi, Quentin Plair, Terrence Terrell, Marshall Cook, JoBeth Williams, Floriana Lima and Josh Duhamel

December 12, 2025

by Carla Hay

Quentin Plair, Zachary Levi and Marshall Cook in “Not Without Hope” (Photo courtesy of Inaugural Entertainment)

Directed by Joe Carnahan

Culture Representation: Taking place in 2009, in Clearwater, Florida, and in the Gulf of Mexico, the dramatic film “Not Without Hope” (based on true events) features a predominantly white and African American cast of characters (with a few Latin people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Four male friends (two of whom are National Football League players) go on a fishing boat trip in the Gulf of Mexico and experience a disaster when their boat capsizes during a storm, and they become lost at sea.

Culture Audience: “Not Without Hope” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and suspenseful dramas about trying to survive while trapped in a large body of water.

Josh Duahmel in “Not Without Hope” (Photo courtesy of Inaugural Entertainment)

Despite some scenes with corny dialogue, “Not Without Hope” is a gripping “based on a true story” drama about four men who got trapped during a storm in the Gulf of Mexico after a boating accident in 2009. This catastrophic disaster takes place about 15 minutes into this two-hour movie, so there isn’t much time to get to know the main characters before they have to fight for their lives. However, “Not Without Hope” has enough suspense and solid portrayals of the main characters for the movie to have an impact on viewers.

Directed by Joe Carnahan, “Not Without Hope” was co-written by Carnahan and E. Nicholas Mariani. The movie’s screenplay is adapted from the 2010 memoir “Not Without Hope” by Nick Schuyler and Jere Longman. Nick Schuyler is one of the main characters in the movie, so viewers who are already aware of this best-selling book and the widely reported story of the rescue will already know that Schuyler survived this horrible ordeal. However, this review will not reveal what happened to the other three men who went on this fateful trip, in case viewers who don’t know might want to see the movie and find out that way.

“Not Without Hope” begins by showing a glimpse of the disaster to come. During a storm in the Gulf of Mexico, four men have been at sea for 13 hours and are clinging to an overturned boat and chanting their athlete training pep talk: “I get strong. You get strong. We get strong.” It’s their way of trying to keep up their courage in a situation that can kill any of them. (“Not Without Hope” was actually filmed in Malta.)

The four men live in or near Clearwater, Florida. They all have backgrounds as football players. During the course of the movie, one of the men reveals that he doesn’t know how to swim. For the purposes of this review, the real people are referred to by their last names, while the characters in the movie are referred to by their first names.

The four men are:

Nick Schuyler (played by Zachary Levi), a 25-year-old personal trainer based in Clearwater, played football for the University of South Florida (USF). He is shown in the movie as being the trainer of the two NFL players who went on this fishing trip. At the time of the boat accident, Nick was engaged to a woman named Paula (played by Floriana Lima), who is depicted in the movie as the first person who wants to report the men missing. Nick is sarcastic and very self-confident. He is the one most likely in the group to inspire others not to give up hope.
Marquis Cooper (played by Quentin Plair), a 26-year-old linebacker for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, is just days away from moving to Oakland because he is switching teams to play for the Oakland Raiders. (This relocation is a contrivance for the movie because by the time this boating accident happened in real life, Cooper had already played for the Raiders.) Marquis is married to Rebekah Cooper (played by Jessica Blackmore), and they have a daughter named Delaney Cooper (played by Forgiveness Miracle Nayina), who is about 4 or 5 years old. Marquis is a devoted family man and all-around good guy.
Corey Smith (played by Terrence Terrell), a 29-year-old defensive end, is a free agent who has played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the San Francisco 49ers and the Detroit Lions. Smith is a bachelor with no children. He is fun-loving, gregarious, and the most likely to take on the biggest physical challenges.
Will Bleakley (played by Marshall Cook), a 25-year-old financial advisor, played football for USF. He is the most sensitive and insecure friend in the group. Will and Nick met each other in sixth grade but didn’t become best friends until they were on the USF football team together. In the movie, Will got laid off (because of recession downsizing) from wealth management company Smith & Barney the day before the fishing trip. In real life, Bleakley was employed by an auto shop owned by his parents at the time of the fishing trip. Will is a bachelor with no children. Will is trying to get over a recent breakup with a girlfriend who dumped him because she wanted to get married, but Will feels he’s not ready for marriage.

Early scenes in the movie show the four friends and Paula gathered at the Cooper house in Clearwater for a barbeque. They spend the night at the house because they plan to go on the fishing trip early the next morning, on February 28, 2009. They will be using Corey’s boat, which is a 21-foot single-engine boat, and plan to meet him at the dock the next morning. (In real life, the boat belonged to Cooper, not Smith.)

Unfortunately, for the four friends, they didn’t check the weather report before going on this fishing trip, which will be about 50 miles from Clearwater in the Gulf of Mexico. Their loved ones find out too late that a storm is headed to the area where the men will be fishing. By the time their loved ones called to warn them about the storm, the men’s cell phones were too far away to get signals.

Will is depicted as the one who is the most reluctant to take the trip because he’s concerned that the boat is too small for them. However, the other men tease him by implying that he’s fearful wimp. Nick, Marquis and Corey all think that because they are tall and strong (Will is the shortest and least muscular of the four men), they can handle whatever comes their way. Nick agrees to go on the trip after he nervously asks if the boat has an emergency radio, and Corey shows Will that the boat has this type of radio.

Despite their bravado, there are signs that these guys aren’t as knowledgeable and experienced fishermen as they would like to think they are. In addition to not checking the weather reports before going on the trip, they didn’t take into account that they might not be able to get cell phone signals in the part of Gulf of Mexico where they are headed. Corey is so ill-prepared for this fishing trip in the Gulf of Mexico’s rough waters, he’s wearing open-toe sandals.

When the men see the storm headed their way, they immediately start to leave. The problem is that their anchor gets stuck on a shipwreck debris below. They try gunning the engine to break free of the anchor, but it just ends up capsizing the boat. It isn’t until much later that they think about cutting the anchor’s rope so that boat can move. By then, the boat has already capsized and is too heavy to turn over.

The only chance of survival is to cling to the boat. There are drinks and packaged food inside the boat. The boat also has a flare. The movie shows if the stranded men are able to use any of these items.

Nick is wearing a bright orange L.L. Bean jacket from that he got as a gift from his mother Marcia Schuyler (played by JoBeth Williams), who is depicted in the movie as a driving force in getting answers from authorities during the search efforts. Before the fishing trip, Nick’s friends teased him about how “loud” the jacket was, but in the midst of this storm, Nick’s brightly colored jacket suddenly looks like a helpful way to be seen in the dark.

The U.S. Coast Guard gets involved, with Captain Timothy Close (played by Josh Duhamel) in charge of the search mission, but the problem is the storm has caused low visibility and endangers the searchers. The search is called off for several hours until there is better visibility. The movie depicts the first 48 hours of the search. During this time, Captain Close enlists the help of the U.S.S. Tornado, led by Lieutenant Commander Patrick Peschka (played by Leeshon Alexander), who only has a few minutes of dialogue in the movie.

The movie has some hokey moments, such as near the beginning of the film, before the fishing trip, Marquis makes some rambling comments to Nick about how Marquis feels like Marquis “belongs to the sea.” Later, when the four men go missing, and the storm gets worse, Captain Close says: “This is about to get real fucked, real fast.”

Clearly, “Not Without Hope” is not a movie that will be nominated for major awards. But it’s a very compelling film that has mostly realistic visual effects in its recreation of the Gulf of Mexico. (There are only a few scenes of the movie where it was obviously filmed as “green screen” in a studio.) The movie never loses sight of the humanity in the story, which is why “Not Without Hope” is worth watching.

Because the movie is told mainly from Nick’s perspective, he and his loved ones get most of the scenes that show how the stranded men and their loved ones coped with this crisis. Marquis’ wife Rebekah has some “worried wife at home” scenes, but Nick’s mother Marcia and Nick’s fiancée Paula are the loved ones shown doing the most in communicating during the search mission.

Nick’s father Stuart, nicknamed Stu (played by James Martin Kelly), doesn’t live with Marcia. It’s implied that Stu and Marcia are divorced, because he’s barely in the movie. The families of Will and Corey are not seen in the movie at all, although there’s an emotionally moving scene where Will mentions his parents.

Perhaps the most unrealistic thing about “Not Without Hope” is the actors playing the four stranded men look too old to be in their 20s. Levi was in his mid-40s when he filmed this movie. However, the chemistry between the actors is good enough to make it believable that their characters are close friends. Duhamel’s portrayal of Captain Close is as someone who has a “take charge” personality where he wants to control the narrative in the media’s reporting of this search mission, and he wants to be perceived as a compassionate hero.

Is “Not Without Hope” a faith-based movie? Not really. Although praying and God are mentioned several times, there’s also a lot of cursing in the film (the word “fuck” is said many times) that would not be in a traditional faith-based movie. In addition, Nick openly says he thinks that God does not exist during a certain part of the movie. By the end of the film, there are no indications that he’s suddenly converted to believing in God, even though there’s a scene where Marcia and Paula pray together to bring Nick and his friends back home safely.

“Not Without Hope” mostly succeeds because of how it’s an absorbing portrayal of the tension-filled and tough aspects of this crisis that have as much to do with the physical difficulties as well as the emotional challenges. In addition to the possibility of drowning, there are also other dangers, such as hypothermia, dehydration, starvation, getting injured, and encountering sharks. The trauma also leads to emotional despair and the inability to think clearly. “Not Without Hope” is ultimately a bittersweet film that doesn’t do anything groundbreaking, but even people who might not like the movie have to admit that “Not Without Hope” isn’t boring.

Inaugural Entertainment released “Not Without Hope” in U.S. cinemas on December 12, 2025.

Review: ‘Shadow Force’ (2025), starring Kerry Washington, Omar Sy, Mark Strong, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Cliff ‘Method Man’ Smith

May 9, 2025

by Carla Hay

Kerry Washington in “Shadow Force” (Photo by Juan Pablo Gutierrez/Lionsgate)

“Shadow Force” (2025)

Directed by Joe Carnahan

Some language in French and German with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Colombia (and briefly in the United States, Mexico, and Spain), the action film “Shadow Force” features a racially diverse cast of characters (black, white, Asian and Latin) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Two married former mercenaries, who used to work for a U.S. government special operations group called Shadow Force, reunite after spending about five years apart, in order to take down the Shadow Force’s former members and leader, who want to kill the spouses for leaving Shadow Force.

Culture Audience: “Shadow Force” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and stupid action movies that have famous cast members.

Natalia Reyes, Mark Strong and Sala Baker in “Shadow Force” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)

That sound you might hear when watching “Shadow Force” is the groan of disappointment that so many talented stars signed up for this awful action flick about two former mercenaries who drag their adorable 5-year-old son into their mess. Lionel Richie’s 1982 hit “Truly” is used as a running joke about sentimentality in the movie. The only “truly” description that applies to this train-wreck film is anything to do with how truly mind-boggling that this level of talent ended up in such low-quality junk.

Directed by Joe Carnahan, “Shadow Force” was written by Leon Chills and Carnahan. The movie takes place mostly in Colombia (where “Shadow Force” was filmed on location), with some scenes taking place briefly in the United States, Mexico, and Spain. Emmy-winning producer Kerry Washington is one of the producers of “Shadow Force,” which unfortunately is a bad investment for her. Her interest in doing this movie seems to be that she wants to showcase that she’s got what it takes to be an action movie star, after being known for mostly starring in dramas and comedies in her career. Washington puts in a good effort when expressing emotions in “Shadow Force,” but she should have chosen a better project, because “Shadow Force” is so horrendous, it’s an embarrassment to everyone involved.

The idiocy in “Shadow Force” begins within the first 10 minutes of the film. Isaac Sarr (played by Omar Sy) is driving to a bank in Miami with his 5-year-old son Ky Sarr (played by Jahleel Kamara), who is a big fan of Lionel Richie’s music. Isaac has been raising Ky as a single parent since Ky was a baby. And where is Ky’s mother, who is still married to Isaac? That information is eventually revealed in the movie.

Isaac and Ky have the misfortune of arriving at the bank just a few minutes before a gang of about 10 armed robbers storm inside and take everyone hostage. One of the robbers holds a gun to Ky’s head. Isaac wears hearing aids, but when he’s about to get in a major brawl, he takes out his hearing aids because he says the reduced noise helps him focus better on the fight. All it looks like is what Tyler Perry as Madea might do when she takes off her earrings before getting into a throwdown.

Isaac tells Ky to close his eyes. Things swirl on the screen and then fade to black. When Isaac tells Ky to open his eyes, Ky sees that all the bank robbers are dead because Isaac killed them all by himself. “Daddy got the bad guys,” Isaac proudly tells Ky. Yes, the movie really is this stupid. It’s also an example of lazy filmmaking to skip over what could have been an intense (although unrealistic) action scene. Isaac and Ky quickly leave the bank before police arrive.

In his rush to be a superhero vigilante, Isaac seems to have forgotten that everything he did in the bank was caught on surveillance video. When you find out that Isaac is supposed to be in hiding, his reckless actions make him look like a moron. This bank robbery massacre makes the news, of course. Jack Cinder, a high-level spy for the U.S. government, sees the surveillance video and immediately recognizes Isaac because he’s been looking for Isaac for the past five years.

And when Jack Cinder sees that Isaac has a son, Jack mutters aloud this realization: “Kyrah got pregnant.” Who is Kyrah? (Her name is pronounced “kye-rah.”) She is Kyrah Owens (played by Washington), who is Ky’s mother and Isaac’s estranged wife. When Ky was a baby, Kyrah left them to go into hiding for Ky’s safety because she thinks the people who want to kill them will assume that she wouldn’t leave Ky.

Why is this family in hiding? In one of the movie’s many exposition dumps, Jack hastily explains to two flunkies named Patrick (played by Marshall Cook) and Parker (played by Ed Quinn) that Jack used to be the leader of a special operations group of mercenaries called Shadow Force. Jack says about Shadow Force: “Basically, we did God’s work around the globe.” Isaac and Kyra were members of Shadow Force, but they broke two of the biggest rules of the group: (1) Don’t get romantically involved with each other and (2) Don’t ever leave the group.

Isaac and Kyra fell in love with each other and went absent without leave around the time that she found out that she was pregnant. They went into hiding and at some point got married. The movie’s main flashback to their early life on the run (before they separated) was when Ky was a baby, and Kyrah told Isaac that she made the difficult decision to go away for Ky’s safety. Kyrah promised that she would eventually return. But after five years of having no contact with Kyrah, Isaac assumed that she wasn’t coming back. Ky was told that Kyrah was “away,” and it was unknown when she would return.

Jack wants revenge because when Isaac and Kyrah quit Shadow Force, the group disbanded. Losing two members of the group who quit made Jack feel humiliated because he perceived it as a failure of his leadership. And now, Jack wants to reunite Shadow Force: “I’m getting the band back together,” he says. The goal of the reunited Shadow Force is to find and murder Isaac, Kyrah and Ky.

There’s an underlying reason why Jack is on this evil vendetta. Years before Kyrah met Isaac, she had a fling with Jack. He wanted a more serious relationship than what Kyrah was willing to give, so she broke up with Jack, who has been bitter about it ever since. Isaac finds out about this love triangle later when Kyrah inevitably reunites with Isaac and Ky. Jack happens to have a private island in Colombia, where he gathers the reunited Shadow Force for secret meetings.

“Shadow Force” has a poorly written subplot about Jack being secretary general of G7, a group of countries (similar to the real-life G10), that have formed an alliance for economic reasons. The only reason why this G7 subplot seems to exist is to show Jack snarling at international leaders during a G7 conference and angrily reminding people not to call him “secretary” but to call him by his full title of “secretary general.” Jack acts more like a crime boss than a busy politician/spy.

The other members of Shadow Force are extremely generic. Anino (played by Jénel Stevens-Thompson), Cysgod (played by Marvin Jones III), Scath (played by Sala Baker), Moriti (played by Natalia Reyes) and Varjo (played by Yoson An) all have names that are more interesting than their blank-void personalities. The movie gives no personal information about these characters, which makes it too easy to predict their fate in this shoddily made film.

There are two other people looking for Isaac: Marvella “Auntie” Clanter (played by Da’Vine Joy Randolph) and Marcus “Unc” Owens (played by Cliff “Method Man” Smith), who are government agents with formerly close ties to Isaac and Kyrah. Auntie and Unc are a sometimes-bickering couple who are work partners and love partners. Unc and Auntie are first seen looking for Isaac at notorious party island Ibiza, Spain, when it just really looks like an excuse for Unc and Auntie to party in an exotic locale. Oscar-winning actress Randolph is doing another sassy character, while Smith continues to be typecast as a street-smart character who likes to bend the rules.

You can almost do a countdown to all the tiresome and unimaginative things that happen in “Shadow Force,” whose action scenes of shootouts, explosions and fist fights are sloppily choreographed and often look downright ludicrous. There are not-very-surprising double crosses between certain characters. And the dialogue is so putridly horrible, it’s a minor miracle the cast members were able to not laugh when saying unintentionally funny lines of dialogue.

“Shadow Force” is one of those abominable action movies where people get in brutal fights and say they’re going to kill their opponents right away, but then they end up standing around and talking or glaring at each other. One of the worst scenes in the movie is when Jack is at the mercy of a law enforcement agent who has captured and cornered Jack, but the law enforcement agent allows Jack to just walk away, with no explanation. It all just seems to be a way for Jack to have the inevitable showdown with the expected people.

One of the few bright spots in “Shadow Force” is Kamara’s scene-stealing performance as Ky. There’s a cute scene where Ky reveals to Kyrah that Isaac’s favorite song is “Truly,” but Isaac doesn’t want to admit it. It turns out that “Truly” was the theme song for the wedding of Isaac and Kyrah. Kamara has a bright future ahead if he continues to be an actor. He deserves to be in much better movies than “Shadow Force.”

Some of the comedy revolves around Ky saying adult things to demonstrate that he hears things that are inappropriate for children his age. In a very “inside joke” part of the movie, Ky mentions the Wu-Tang Clan, which is the rap group that has “Shadow Force” co-star Smith as member under his rap name Method Man. “You can’t fuck with the Wu-Tang Clan,” Ky chirps, as the adults laugh at the kid’s foul-mouthed comment. Ky also gets some uncomfortable laughs from the adults when the Commodores song “Brick House” (also written by Richie) is played in a scene, Ky blurts out that it’s a song about “breasts and booties.”

Putting all of these kid jokes aside, “Shadow Force” is appallingly inept in showing how Kyrah and Isaac constantly put Ky in danger during the couple’s strategy of “kill or be killed” when dealing with their ex-Shadow Force teammates. The spouses try to cover up the truth and outrght lie to Ky every time the assassins come after them. But by the time Ky is put in a trunk of a car that is shot at, flips over, and crashes into a lake, or when he sees people using military assault rifles all over the place, it’s kind of insulting that anyone would think this kid hasn’t figured out that something is very wrong and that people are trying to kill his parents.

During all of this mayhem, Kyrah and Isaac occasionally speak French to each other, as if that’s supposed to make them look more romantic. It doesn’t. Sy (who has done better work in other movies) is very stiff in his “Shadow Force” role as Isaac. Washington and Sy have lukewarm chemistry together as Kyrah and Isaac are more convincing as parents to Ky. Strong is just doing another version of the villains that he’s played on screen in many other roles. “Shadow Force” might be slightly entertaining if you enjoy watching mindless movies to laugh at, but the movie is funny for all the wrong reasons, and it’s not so amusing if you’d rather spend your time doing other things.

Lionsgate released “Shadow Force” in U.S. cinemas on May 9, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on May 30, 2025.

Review: ‘Copshop’ (2021), starring Gerard Butler and Frank Grillo

September 8, 2021

by Carla Hay

Frank Grillo (center) in “Copshop” (Photo courtesy of Open Road Films/Briarcliff Entertainment)

“Copshop” (2021)

Directed by Joe Carnahan

Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional city of Gun Creek, Nevada, the action film “Copshop” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and Latinos) representing the working-class, middle-class and the criminal underground.

Culture Clash: A con artist, who has landed in jail for assaulting a cop, finds out that more than one person in the jail is out to kill him because of his past alliance with a murdered district attorney.

Culture Audience: “Copshop” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of stars Gerard Butler and Frank Grillo and like seeing a movie with a badly conceived story and a lot of unrealistic violence.

Gerard Butler in “Copshop” (Photo courtesy of Open Road Films/Briarcliff Entertainment)

“Copshop” can’t decide if it wants to be a gritty action flick or a wacky crime comedy. The result is that this creatively bankrupt film is an incoherent mess. The dialogue is awful, the acting is mediocre, and it’s just a time-wasting excuse to be a “shoot ’em up” flick with a nonsensical plot. Directed by Joe Carnahan, who co-wrote the “Copshop” screenplay with Kurt McLeod, “Copshop” is filled with lazy tropes that a lot of audiences dislike about mindless, violent movies.

“Copshop” over-relies on these tiresome clichés: Characters sustain major injuries that would put them in a hospital, but then these same characters miraculously move around less than an hour later as if they’ve got nothing but bruises. People draw guns on each other with the intent to kill, but then they spend a ridiculous amount of time giving dumb speeches or trading insults instead of shooting. And worst of all: “Copshop” constantly plays tricks on viewers about who’s really dead and who’s really alive.

All of that might be excused if the action scenes were imaginative, if the storylines were exciting and/or if the characters’ personalities were appealing. But most of the principal characters in “Cop Shop” are hollow and forgettable. The fight scenes are monotonous and nothing that fans of action flicks haven’t already seen in much better movies.

“Copshop” takes place in the fictional Nevada city of Gun Creek, which is in the middle of a desert. (“Copshop” was actually filmed in New Mexico and Georgia.) Gun Creek is a fairly small city, which is why there are only about six or seven cops on duty at the Gun Creek Police Department’s headquarters, where most of the action takes place when the police department goes under siege one night. You know a movie is bad when guns and bombs are going off in a police department, and yet the cops are too stupid to try to call for help immediately.

Nothing about this police department and its jail looks authentic. Before the chaos breaks out, everything is too neat, too quiet and too clean in the cops’ office space and in the jail. In other words, everything looks like a movie set. This phoniness just lowers the quality of this already lowbrow movie.

And the cinematography went overboard in trying to make the jail look “edgy,” because it’s too dark inside. And yet the jail cells are spotless. Jail cells aren’t supposed to look like a sleek underground nightclub. This movie is such a bad joke.

The gist of the moronic story is that Theodore “Teddy” Morretto (played by Frank Grillo) is a con artist who’s on the run from an assassin. In one part of the movie, Teddy describes himself as some kind of power broker who likes to introduce powerful people to each other and help fix their problems. He doesn’t like to call himself a “fixer” though. He likes to call himself a “manufacturer.”

One of the people whom Teddy had past dealings with was an attorney general named Fenton (played by Dez), who has been murdered. This crime has made big news in the area. Because of information that Teddy knows, he figures that he’s next on the hit list of whoever wanted Fenton dead.

In case it wasn’t clear that someone wants Teddy to be killed, a flashback scene shows that a bomb was set in Teddy’s car, it exploded, and he barely escaped with his life. His clothes caught on fire, but then later in the story, there’s no mention of him having the kind of burn injuries that he would’ve gotten from the types of flames spread on his body. It’s just sloppy screenwriting on display.

Teddy has come up with a plan to hide out for a while. He deliberately gets himself arrested because he thinks he’ll be “safer” in jail. Teddy disrupts a nighttime wedding reception at a casino, where a brawl is happening outdoors. When the police show up, Teddy assaults one of the cops and literally pleads for a cop to use a taser on him.

The cop who obliges his request is rookie Valerie Young (played by Alexis Louder), who is measured and sarcastic in her interactions with people. On the same night that Teddy is hauled into the police station and put in a jail cell, an anonymous drunk man who has no identification is also arrested and put in the jail cell across from Teddy. The other man got arrested because he crashed his car into a highway fence, right in front of two patrol officers who were parked nearby.

It turns out (and this isn’t spoiler information) that this other arrestee is really an assassin named Bob Viddick (played by Gerard Butler), who is somewhat of a legend among the criminals in Nevada. Somehow, Bob found out that Teddy was in the police department’s jail, and he got himself arrested because he’s been assigned to murder Teddy. And just so you know how incompetent this police department is, Bob has smuggled a gun into the jail cell.

The rest of “Copshop” is literally a bunch of shootouts, as the police station goes under siege when another assassin shows up. He’s a lunatic gangster named Anthony Lamb (played by Toby Huss), and he wants to kill Teddy, Bob and everyone else in the building, except for a corrupt cop who has access to a large haul of confiscated drugs that Anthony wants. This criminal cop is named Huber (played by Ryan O’Nan), and he owes Anthony a lot of money.

Huber is one of the cops in charge of the inventory/evidence at the police department. Huber plans to steal several bricks of what looks like cocaine, in order to pay off his debts to Anthony. It’s a dumb plan because this police department is so small that it would be easy to figure out who took the drug stash.

Huber already looks suspicious, because he’s been sweaty and acting nervous all night. Here’s an example of the movie’s terrible dialogue. When a fellow cop notices that Huber has been acting furtive and preoccupied with the inventory room, he asks Huber, “What’s got you so curious?” Huber replies, “Curiosity.”

Rookie cop Valerie is telegraphed early on as the one who will be the movie’s big hero. But she’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. When she looks up Teddy’s criminal record, she’s astonished to see that he’s been arrested 22 times but no charges were ever filed against him. “How does that happen?” she asks a fellow cop in the office. Can you say “confidential informant,” Valerie?

Despite being saddled with a horrible script, Louder’s wisecracking depiction of Valerie is one of the few things that can be considered close to a highlight of “Copshop.” The other is the nutty performance of Huss as mobster Anthony, who is a scene stealer. How unhinged is Anthony? He starts singing in the middle of the mayhem. “Copshop” uses Curtis Mayfield’s 1972 hit “Freddie’s Dead” has a recurring song in more than one scene.

However, there’s nothing about any of the characters in the movie that can be considered outstanding enough for audiences to be clamoring for a sequel. Butler and Grillo are two of the producers of “Copshop,” so they’re partially to blame for how this embarrassing schlock turned out, but Carnahan (also a “Copshop” producer) is the one who’s chiefly responsible. It’s not the first time they’ve done these types of unimpressive B-movies, and it won’t be the last time.

Open Road Films and Briarcliff Entertainment will release “Copshop” in U.S. cinemas on September 17, 2021. The movie had a one-night-only sneak preview in U.S. cinemas on September 8, 2021.