Review of Armored (2009) by Michael V — 13 Nov 2011

There is nothing new or original here and it is a mish-mash of all heist films we've seen in the past -- some great (The Good Thief), some good (Heist) and some terrible. The cast is the most impressive thing about the movie but they bring nothing to it other than their names.

Matt Dillon, Laurence Fishburne, Jean Reno have all been great in movies before; but here they have throw-away roles that mean nothing. It gives them a chance to play the baddie, I guess, so perhaps they jumped at the chance to play these roles.

As I said, there is nothing new here. A group of armed officers who transport large shipments of money (like Brinks) decide to steal a shipment of money off of their own trucks totalling $42 million. They think that they have a foolproof scam and scenario in order to get it; but it really all hinges on the sixth officer -- a newbie who has just earned his badge but appears to be a great friend and godson of Matt Dillon's character (the new officer is played by Columbus Short and the other two officers making up the six are Skeet Ulrich and Prison Break's Amaury Nolasco).

Well -- obviously things don't go smoothly because, otherwise, there wouldn't be a movie. Are there double-crosses, is someone working for himself and wants to off all the others, does the newbie decide to not play along or does one actually realize he was raised with morals? There is nothing really surprising onscreen and the expendable characters are pretty obvious which always makes for a lousy movie in my opinion (I hate this).

I didn't buy the actions of most of the characters because they seemed to be in conflict with earlier actions. It doesn't add up for most of the movie. Heroes' Milo Ventimiglia shows up as an actual police officer who stumbles upon the six trying to figure out an exit strategy (they hadn't planned for everything I guess) and Fred Ward appears as their stoic boss.

Armored could have been a better movie because heist films can be excellent. It was directed by somebody named Nimrod; but that shouldn't mean anything, should it? Armored ... nehhh, it isn't really worth it.