Copshop: The 2021 Joe Carnahan Comeback Tour continues with another modest success in Copshop. Carnahan combines the deliberate pacing of The Grey with the trashy 70's vibe of Smokin Aces' in this contained action thriller that sees a small town Nevada police station turn into a deadly battleground after a con man (Frank Grillo) embroiled in a major political conspiracy is brought in on an assault charge by a rookie officer (Alexis Louder)-only to promptly get hunted down by two hitmen (Gerard Butler, Toby Huss) that are chasing the sizable bounty on his head . The overly convoluted nature of the event that sets this cops vs. con man vs. hitmen showdown into motion and an underwhelming climax deflates some of the fun, but the moody modern western aesthetic, snappy dialogue and magnetic performances from all four leads provide Copshop with enough vintage, hard-nosed charms to make it another solid entry into Carnahan's underrated filmography.
Grade: B
The Card Counter: Paul Schrader follows up the unnerving triumph of First Reformed with a shockingly bland film that boasts clunky dialogue, subpar supporting performances and an ending that can be telegraphed from a million miles away. Only the great work of Oscar Isaac as the tortured Iraq war criminal turned meticulous regimented under-the-radar traveling poker player who sits at this center of this grim character study manages to standout and save this film from being completely forgettable. By adding a sense of intrigue, intensity and thinly-veiled torment to every scene, Isaac provides The Card Counter with the explosive presence it needed for its tragic narrative to achieve its desired impact while also unintentionally exploiting how Schrader and his co-stars (Tye Sheridan, Tiffany Haddish, Willem Dafoe) managed to suffocate the haunting visceral emotion that a story about the far-reaching psychological impacts of violent trauma should have by not putting enough raw gusto into their work. History says Schrader will probably bounce back before too long, but the disappointment brought on by The Card Counter's largely unexceptional quality will certainly sting in the interim.
Grade: C+
Prisoners of the Ghostland: While the English-language debut from cult favorite Japanese director Sion Sono has oddity, absurdity and surrealism aplenty, its cornucopia of artsy outlandishness never translates into anything overly compelling. The pacing is brutally slow without much of a payoff, the ambitious blending of genres it attempts (western, dystopian, chambara) never manages to cohesively meld together and the lack of consistent entertainment value present really exposes how incoherent and nonsensical the story is. Even the people that are eager to add new highlights to the Nicolas Cage freakout reel aren't likely to find a lot to like here outside of a single scene in the final 30 minutes that seems destined to be enshrined in the pantheon of his most celebrated overacting moments. There's enough hypnotic visuals and occasional glimpses of inspired lunacy present here to reaffirm the immense potential that a Cage/Sono vehicle had. Unfortunately, they're just not nearly frequent enough to save Prisoners of the Ghostland from escaping the desolate wasteland it damned itself to when it executed the bulk of its nutty ideas in the most bafflingly dull ways imaginable.
Grade: C
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