Wild Card (5/10): Fun action scenes, but too few for a disjointed film like this one.

“I can take care of things. That is all you need to know.”

Don’t be fooled by the awesome poster that has Jason Statham pulling off an acrobatic stunt because Wild Card is more of a character driven drama than an action film. The only problem is that it never does manage to say anything about the character despite trying to be an inventive character driven film. Jason Statham is supposed to be this compulsive gambler living in Las Vegas working as a fixer thanks to his special skills, but we would’t actually know these things about the character until about forty minutes into the film so everything leading up to that seems like a waste of time. Wild Card has some interesting ideas and the action scenes are extremely fun, but there are only three action scenes in the entire movie. Getting to watch Statham beat up a gang of mobsters with a spoon and a butter knife is the highlight of the film, but the rest of the movie feels disjointed and disconnected. There are a number of secondary characters that have interesting appearances but most of the subplots end up going nowhere. It is surprising that the screenplay failed to work here because William Goldman is an Award winning writer (All the President’s Men and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) and the film is based on his novel “Heat.” But somehow Wild Card feels like it is missing a link and every sideplot that is introduced doesn’t fit in the film as a whole. 

Simon West has directed several mediocre action films, but I will always have respect for his most entertaining film, Con Air. This is his third collaboration with Jason Statham and I think The Mechanic was their best one. He is trying to do something different with Wild Card by focusing on the character rather than the action, but the drama doesn’t make much sense. Statham is still able to keep us interested thanks to his charisma and the few action scenes are well choreographed and stylized. It was almost enough for me to recommend it, but ultimately the waste of a talented secondary cast and the disjointed subplots left me wanting more. 

I already mentioned Statham’s charismatic performance, but I want to point out some issues I had with other performers. Max Casella and Sofia Vergara have a small scene at the beginning of the movie that is far from memorable. They are talented actors but the way West introduces these characters and never connects them with the story sort of falls flat. Then you have the talented Anne Heche working as a waitress at a bar that Statham frequently visits, Jason Alexander who is a lawyer that shares his office with Statham, and Michael Angarano who wants Statham to be his personal bodyguard for the night while he is out in Vegas. As much as I like these actors their roles are wasted. Dominik Garcia-Lorido has an interesting role as Statham’s friend who is beaten by a mobster (played by Milo Ventimiglia) just for funs sake. She wants revenge and she knows Statham can help her. This is the part of the plot that worked best for me, but Ventimiglia never ends up being much of a threat. There is an incredible cameo however with Stanley Tucci that worked so well that I wished the film would’ve focused on his relationship with Statham instead. There are some interesting moments in Wild Card but West was never able to piece them together into a cohesive and entertaining film. By the end no matter how much fun I had with the action scenes I couldn’t help but feel as if I’d seen an incomplete film.

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.