ARMORED Review

I’m trying hard to trash this movie but the fact is I’m going to describe it in the most loosely used term around these days, ARMORED is quite simply… entertaining, it’s not the smartest, the swiftest, the most hardcore heist thriller out there but for the mediocre quality that it is, it manages to strike a jab or two. It’s got enough surprises to compensate for everything else that it lacks or tries too hard on achieving. Locked, sealed and delivered, ARMORED is nothing short of this season’s guilty pleasure

A crew of officers at an armored transport security firm risk their lives when they embark on the ultimate heist… against their own company. Armed with a seemingly fool-proof plan, the men plan on making off with a fortune with harm to none. But when an unexpected witness interferes, the plan quickly unravels and all bets are off.

Director Nimrod Antal doesn’t do much difference than what he did with his previous work, Vacancy. Most of what’s happening in ARMORED is what occurs after things gone from good to bad to a big pile of irreparable mess. Even how the story concludes is as abrupt as how each situation gets worsen by the minute and the hour. One idealist against 5 determined thieves turn murderers and one coward. Intriguing concept by scribe James V. Simpsons but his writing could use some more creativity, much of the dialogue is bland and filled with testosterone-driven jokes that not even male audiences would find particularly funny. For a bunch of guys who are supposed to be brothers working day in day out, none of their conversations are close to being as interesting as the guys in TV series Rescue Me.

But the plot does have its moments, once the plan goes wrong because an unsuspecting witness becomes a victim, the whole situation turns into a cat and mouse game between Matt Dillon’s gang and Columbus Short who plays a war vet who seems to be the only one there appreciating the value of life and not letting desperation get the better of him. The question of how Short can get himself out of this mess alive along with his brother is the question that this movie hopes will get you hooked from that point on til the end. After a while, it’s obvious to see which ones are the airheads and which one that makes up effective plans on the spot as he goes. One by one, we see the gang falter, either by conscience or a miscalculated hasty judgment call. Watching Laurence Fishburne as the hothead, ill-tempered member of the team is amusing because Fishburne is a caliber actor who can pull that off, you wouldn’t wanna meet his character in this movie and cross him because what he can do is quite intimidating and unpredictable.
The short runtime is another evidence that ARMORED aims nothing but to give you a popcorn action/thriller flick.

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