Review – Armored (2009)

December 4, 2009 – Armoredfollows Ty Hackett (Columbus Short), an Iraq war vet who must raise his adolescent brother Jimmy (Andre Jamal Kinney) on his own after their parents die. He gets a job at Eagle Shield Security, the same armored truck company that his dad worked for. His godfather and mentor Mike Cochrane (Matt Dillon) also works there. Faced with mounting bills, foreclosure and the possibility that his kid brother will end up in foster care, Ty becomes a begrudging accomplice in Mike’s devious master plan.

Mike proposes that Ty join him and his crew — Mike’s hotheaded brother-in-law Baines (Laurence Fishburne), Quinn (Jean Reno), Dobbs (Skeet Ulrich) and born-again ex-con Palmer (Amaury Nolasco) — in pulling off an inside job worth $42 million. The plan seems fool-proof, but — as any viewer of capers can tell you — all “perfect crimes” are destined to go horribly awry in a movie. This inside job is no different. It’s the getting away with it part that proves the most difficult for these guards-turned-robbers.

Mike had promised Ty that the job would be violence-free, but again this is a crime movie and a bodycount is inevitable. Rebelling against his now panicked and violent cohorts, Ty locks himself inside his armored car at their drop site (an abandoned mill)… with the other half of the loot. The thieves only have less than an hour to break into their own armored truck, deal with Ty and get their money before they miss their check-in deadline and the armored car service alerts the police. Ty is outnumbered, trapped, and looking at losing all that he’s fought so hard to hold onto in his troubled life.

Much as he did with the 2007 thriller Vacancy, director Nimrod Antal manages to turn a rather generic premise — in this case, a heist gone wrong — into something that feels not original but at least fresh and exciting. Antal’s direction, along with the grim cinematography of Andrzej Sekula, makes for a more interesting-looking heist film than we usually see. As he did with Vacancy, it is Antal’s ability to draw realistic, gripping performances from his leads that elevates the film and keeps the viewer invested in the characters even though we know how formula dictates the story play out.

Dillon plays the Faustian devil here, tempting his young friend not out of malice but from true concern. After all, Ty’s a veteran who has endured a hard life; doesn’t he deserve to be rewarded? Given how hellish the economy and job market is right now, it’s a tempting offer many people might agree with. In that sense, Armored is reminiscent of those bandit pictures of the Great Depression that offered filmgoers the escapist “get rich quick and screw the system” fantasy they craved.

Short gives the film’s strongest performance, an endearing dramatic turn that’s somewhat of a surprise for those who are only familiar with his comedic work. Surprisingly, the industry vets who play the gang don’t fare as well as this young up-and-comer: Fishburne is a bit over-the-top as the requisite loose cannon, while Reno plays yet another quiet and intense Frenchman with a knack for violence. Ulrich has a few solid moments, but all of these characters are ultimately thumbnail sketches. We only get to know much about Ty and a bit about Mike, but otherwise they’re all ciphers who are memorable only because of the actors playing them.

The entire second half of the film is one protracted but gripping suspense sequence played out in essentially real time. As in Vacancy, Antal knows how to use a single, enclosed location to maximum effect for generating suspense. While there are definitely familiar moments from other robbery films here, particularly Reservoir Dogs with the inclusion of Milo Ventimiglia as a wounded cop, Antal succeeds in crafting a memorable and gripping thriller. While Armored may not offer the viewer much of anything new, it’s nevertheless an entertaining little flick that’s worth a look-see.

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Source: IGN