If you’re looking to incubate some new talent, there are few things better than using a tried-and-true formula. You get the viewer in the door with familiar genre trappings - banter, shootouts, creepy villains - and then show them how new faces handle those ideas. The end result might be broadly the same, but maybe you get the chance to hand something over to a new generation of performers and craftspeople.

That was my main takeaway from Copshop, a cops-and-criminals thriller with a funny streak that features a number of recognizable talents: Gerard Butler and Frank Grillo onscreen, and Joe Carnahan behind the camera. But more than anyone, it’s co-lead Alexis Louder who grabs your attention. With a career built mostly on TV so far (including HBO’s Watchmen), Louder proves in Copshop that she deserves her own action franchise. She can face off with B-movie tough guys like Butler and Grillo and come out on top. Thinking of Daniel Craig’s recent comments about the idea of a female successor in the 007 role, I’d love to see Louder get to be an example of what Craig is pushing for.

Carnahan’s film announces itself as a retro callback with its opening credits: a 70s-style title card, backed by the theme from 1973’s Magnum Force. Despite the old-school vibes, it’s the present day, and we’re in a rural part of Nevada. A Ford Crown Vic full of bullet holes limps along a road until its driver, Teddy Murretto (Grillo) stumbles out. Muretto seeks out the first cop he can find (Louder’s rookie officer Valerie Young) and punches her in an effort to get himself locked up. 

But he’s not in the local station’s cell very long before a number of people come looking for him: first is an assassin named Bob Viddick (Butler), followed by an even more eerie gun-for-hire named Anthony Lamb (Toby Huss). Officer Young must try to survive their onslaught and figure out if Muretto is worth protecting, or if he’s just as irredeemable as everyone else.

As a filmmaker, Carnahan is no stranger to these kinds of movies. His movies like Smokin’ Aces, The Grey, and the ill-fated A-Team remake from 2010 have always been comfortably in B-movie territory, with the exception that he can attract relatively big names, like Liam Neeson or Butler, and decent budgets. Copshop isn’t even the first collaboration between Carnahan and Grillo this year: their video game-influenced action-comedy Boss Level went straight to VOD platforms in March.

The script, by Carnahan and Kurt McLeod, is sharper and maybe a bit deeper than you’d expect from a movie built around so much mayhem. But none of the characters are very complex, and a few get dispatched too soon to help the story evolve in the way I hoped, given the setup in the opening half. This is a screenplay based on archetypes, after all, even if the filmmakers try to boost the representation a bit with Louder’s casting.

I also have to call attention to Toby Huss, who was a fan favourite on the (still) underseen AMC series Halt and Catch Fire. Huss’ character isn’t anything special on his own, but Huss’ performance suggests that like Louder, he deserves to have bigger roles. I could easily see him as a Batman villain or even someone to face off against whoever Eon Productions chooses at their next 007.

Copshop may not be something worth running out to see on the big screen, but it offers enough fun moments that I hope it’s easy to find on Netflix or Prime Video in the coming months. I’m curious to see which up-and-comers Carnahan highlights next.

Copshop gets three stars out of four.

Stray thoughts

• Butler continues his recent streak of grungy-looking characters in this movie.

• The movie forgets to explain a certain supposed death just before the climax.

• Bonus points for casting Chad L. Coleman as the sergeant.