Hitting theaters today is the gritty crime thriller COPSHOP, starring and produced by Gerard Butler and Frank Grillo, and directed by Narc‘s Joe Carnahan.
“This is like…in the spirit of all the best 70s Westerns,” Butler, star of 300 and Olympus Has Fallen, tells ABC Audio. “Small-town rookie cop, there’s not a lot going on in that town until the bad guys roll in.”
“And you have this wily con man, Teddy Muretto, that’s Frank Grillo, who actually breaks into the police station, essentially gets arrested because he’s trying to get away from myself,” Butler says of his shadowy hitman, Bob Viddick. “And I also find a way to break into the police station. People just keep following into this damn police station to try and kill Teddy Muretto,” he says with a laugh.
COPSHOP is anchored by newcomer Alexis Louder, playing the rookie cop trapped with the two main characters, and who has to unravel a mystery dealing with corrupt officers while dealing with a psychotic contract killer, played by Toby Huss.
Louder called her acting trial by fire “amazing.” “It felt great to work with people that they are veterans in this industry and in this genre, and they treated me like a peer,” she told ABC Audio. “They had confidence in me to do what I know how to do.”
Louder added, “But if I had a question, they were very generous and humble and gracious with the wealth of information that they have. And it was just so much fun just running through the police station with these guys.”
Butler says COPSHOP is, “Extremely tense and fun and dark and hard edged and yet kind of irreverent and explosive.”
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