Armored: Review

Armored

Rating:

It starts with a simple enough idea. A couple of guys working for an armored car company. In about three words they tell the few ideas that are necessary for the story to work. The cars will all be outfitted with GPS (when, who knows…they just aren’t there yet) and that the next day they will be transporting forty-two million dollars. A whole lotta dough. In another two minutes they lay it all out for us. Ty (Columbus Short) is having money problems. Big ones that unsurprisingly decide to be unbearable just a few days before the big heist. Mike (Matt Dillon) decides that since Ty has earned his stripes he should be brought into the loop. They are going to jack their own cars. Stash the money then set it up to look like they were robbed. Easy as that. To make everything look good, Ty has to say no. He has to worry about the whole thing before he agrees. Magically nine hours after the idea is floated he shows up ready to play his part. Lets just say that things go downhill from there (Take that how you wish).

If they had taken the time to do rewrites on the script they would have noticed that it is some of the most inane drivel ever seen on paper. The fact that the characters names were repeated dozens of times was the least of the problems. I would be more then happy to send over a few books on screenwriting to Mr. Simpson if he would like. All I need is your address.

Screenplay problems aside, the movie was still flawed. Matt Dillon was in full drama mode with his face set and his eyes bold. His voice extra strong. It was a shame to see such a great cast take their places in the back, relegated to such obscure tasks as pounding bolts, and grunting a lot. They additions (Fishburne, and Reno mostly) were brought on to accent the cast, but their inability to show their acting ability brought the entire movie down a notch. It was sad to watch.

Mostly this movie suffered from having no story. No story meant they had to find some way to take up time. Some way to fill the onscreen minutes. Instead of filling the time with car chases (There was one, we’ll get to that in a minute) and beatings, they chose to fill it with insane conversations where nothing happened except the characters names were repeated a few more times and they both pleaded their side of the story. About the car chase. Imagine the sheer power, the power brought on by the weight of two armored trucks trying to ram each other off the road. Strong right, can’t you just see the dust billowing up, the metal sheering off where the two ran into each other in their attempts to be the victor. Ok, that’s what it could have been. Somehow they managed to turn a car chase with great potential into one of the slowest sequences in the film. Shame.

Please don’t waste your time on this. It’s not even looking out for at RedBox. Just let it die. Please.