If this were a book, it’d be a lurid 1940s pulp thriller.
Actually, it’s still a lurid pulp thriller, albeit with 21st century levels of violence and an unrelenting barrage of gratuitous F-bombs. Sacramento-schooled writer/director Joe Carnahan has never been one for subtlety, having begun his career with gun- and testosterone-laden crime thrillers such as Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane, Narc and Smokin’ Aces.
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| Small-town rookie cop Valerie Young (Alexis Louder) doesn't know it yet, but she's about to have a very, very bad night. |
Its genre placement aside, it’s also an ingenious example of claustrophobic, COVID-era filmmaking, as most of the action takes place within a single extensive interior setting. The premise — script by Carnahan, Kurt McLeod and Mark Williams — has vague echoes of 1976’s Assault on Precinct 13, which put John Carpenter on the map.
The execution sprays enough macho, attitude-laden testosterone to be bottled and sold retail.
Carnahan initially cross-cuts between two sets of events. The first is a routine — read: dull and boring — night shift at a small-town Nevada police station, where chatty rookie officer Valerie Young (Alexis Louder) stands out among her mostly white, disinterested and overweight colleagues. Elsewhere, the frantic Teddy Murretto (Frank Grillo) roars down the highway in a car laden with bullet holes, clearly trying to escape something not far behind him.
Valerie and her partner respond to a brawl that has disrupted a wedding; while separating the combatants, she’s sucker-punched — hard — by Murretto, who has just rushed to the scene. Naturally, he’s arrested, driven to the station and put in a cell … as he intended.
A few minutes later, another pair of officers drag in a disheveled, incoherent drunk who’s barely able to stand, let alone walk. He’s placed in the “drunk cell,” across the aisle from Murretto’s temporary cage.
Ah, but that’s no drunk. We’re not surprised, once they’re left alone, when he snaps to sharp-eyed awareness and faces Murretto with the feral anticipation of a lion about to devour a lamb. Meet professional assassin Bob Viddick (Gerard Butler), whose current contract is Murretto: a “fixer” for the Mob who got too greedy, and must be dealt with.
Viddick playfully taunts his prey, occasionally glancing at his watch, which is counting down the minutes to … what? Murretto, assuming himself safe in the cell, responds with superficial bravado.
