My Review: Armored (3/10)

¨Not everybody is a hero Soldier boy.¨

(3/10) Laurence Fishburne´s character, Baines, tells this to his partner after a heist that he has been planning with his coworkers. He is right, not everybody is a hero. That is just as certain as saying that not every good actor makes a good movie. This film has a very talented cast, but the script and story were so bad that it made these actors look like amateurs. I really thought this was a waste of a talented cast with such names as Laurence Fishburne (Morpheus in the Matrix trilogy), Matt Dillon (There´s Something About Mary, Crash), Jean Reno (Ronin and The Professional), Skeet Ulrich (Scream), Amaury Nolasco (from the TV series Prison Break), Milo Ventimiglia (from the TV series Heroes), and Columbus Short (who is probably the least known actor and ironically had the main part in this movie). I was really disappointed with this film because I know most of these actors have made excellent films although they are in a slump right now (Jean Reno has had to settle for two appearances in The Pink Panther, Matt Dillon hasn`t made anything noteworthy for quite some time, and Fishburne has stuck with his TV role in CSI). Hungarian director Nimrod Antal who became famous for his local film Kontroll, which received several foreign film awards, now had the chance to make his second American film after he debuted with Vacancy. He has received much more critical acclaim with his Hungarian films than he has so far with these two movies, and perhaps he is not ready to work with such big time actors or he doesn`t have as much freedom as he did with his other films. Whatever it is, he will have to go back to his roots next time if he wants to have a better reception from critics and audiences alike.

The movie begins with three security guards transporting money in an armored truck from one bank to another. Baines (Laurence Fishburne) is the driver while Mike (Matt Dillon) and Ty (Columbus Short) are in charge of loading the money into the vehicle. When they finish loading, Baines tells them to be on the lookout because a suspicious van has been circulating the area. While they are in the truck, the engine suddenly shuts down because it seems someone messed with the gas tank and they end up stuck under a bridge with no form of communication. A black van comes to a stop right behind them and three masked men come straight towards them and put a bomb on the armored truck. The guards have no time to react but all of a sudden fireworks begin to come out of the device which seemed to be a bomb. Baines and Mike can`t stop laughing while Ty still doesn`t get over what is happening. It is all a prank because Ty is new to the job and that is the way his partners welcome him. The masked men are coworkers from the other armored truck, Quinn (Jean Reno), Dobbs (Skeet Ulrich), and Palmer (Amaury Nolasco). After the scare they all go out and have some drinks in a bar where we get to know each character a little better. Ty is a former soldier who has recently lost his parents and has to take care of his little brother. Mike is a friend of the family and promises to take care of them. We discover that Ty is having a lot of economical troubles and is about to lose his house. At first, Ty tries to get his boss Ashcroft (Fred Ward) to give him some more hours, but it isn`t possible. Mike tells Ty about a plan they all have of stealing a big transaction that is going to take place the next day and they want him to be a part of it. It is supposed to be a simple job where no one will get hurt and they will all walk out with a lot of money which just happens to be from the bank that is trying to take Ty`s house away. The heist turns out to go nothing as planned and the action begins.

I was really disappointed with this film because it had so much potential, but these talented actors performed under my expectations due to a weak plot and bad direction. The story had too many plot holes and unbelievable elements, the actors were unconvincing, the action was predictable, the characters seemed to change moods from one moment to the next, and the main character was someone I really didn`t care for that much. This is one of those movies that you forget about a few days after you see it and will have no memory of it at all. There is nothing positive I can say about this except that it is just cheap entertainment. I really feel bad for some of these actors who have much more to offer but can`t seem to find a decent script. Armored is probably one of the weakest heist movies out in the last few years. The film just makes you wish these armored trucks had a GPS system or something so we didn`t have to watch the silly plot unfold.