Watching Armored with blank indifference...
Somewhere between the legacies of Reservoir Dogs and RoboCop is Armored, though more 'middling' than in the middle. A simplistic heist makes for a simplistic movie, unfortunately, and instead of going for the gold, writer James Simpson goes for silver and ends up with such: what could've been B+ material ends up being strictly B, nothing more, nothing less.
A young, decorated Iraq war veteran (Columbus Short) returns home to support his only remaining family, in an artistic brother named Jimmy (Andre Kinney). His only other tie, Godfather Mike Cochrone (Matt Dillon), gets him a job as an armored-truck driver, amongst a colorful cast of co-workers (Laurence Fishburne, Jean Reno, Skeet Ulrich, Amaury Nolasco, and an underutilized Fred Ward). After a souful, very blue-collar first act, the group eventually embarks on a self-heist of sorts for a lofty $42 million—which is the first of many mistakes that Armored makes—you couldn't imagine these guys having anywhere near that much money. They should've shot for something smaller, just like in the yarn Mike preaches to inspire the others to get on board.
As the lead, Short stumbles through awkward dialogue stretches the best he can. Dillon tries to hold down the fort but maybe tries a little too hard and ends up coming off bland. Fishburne is not given enough to work with as the most unpredictable of the bunch. Amaury Nolasco's character is near-embarrassing in its execution, simply because, again, what worthwhile character was there to begin with? Jean Reno, get an agent, and Skeet Ulrich, well, he was cool to see again but for no real reason. This throwback cast is a welcome gesture, but it's left to die by an incredibly underwritten script with little or no sense of heist ingenuity.
For once, it's the writer that ruins perfectly good direction, instead of the other way around. Director Nimród (what a name) Antal definitely has talent, but can't fuse the uneven sections. His little visual flourishes and expertise with a modern color palette make me excited for his future projects (i.e. Predators). He's one to watch.
In the end, Armored has little going on under its titular shield. It even feels bottled-up, like they backed off a bunch of things that could've been included to make it more interesting. A few, sporadic moments of wonder ("All you gotta do is open the door," the villain's second wind, the ending) can't hold the picture, and ultimately Armored fails to meet its already-low expectations. The soul of the picture doesn't last long, but one thing the opening gets right is this: The bad economy is everywhere; it almost seems natural/expected now. The last thing we need are bad movies to go with it.
** out of ****
~ Patrick Fryberger
