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How to get it all wrong

Updated on: 06 February,2010 08:41 AM IST  | 
Bryan Durham |

Armored film review

How to get it all wrong

ARMORED
A; DRAMA
Dir: Nimrod Antal
Cast: Matt Dillon, Laurence Fishburne, Jean Reno, Amaury Nolasco, Milo Ventimiglia, Skeet Ulrich, Columbus Short
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'Why couldn't you just play along?'

Minutes later, Palmer (Nolasco) jumps to his death. His maut isn't the first nor is it the last.

Thick-as-thieves (purely coincidental?) bunch, Mike (Dillon), Quinn (Reno), Baines (Fishburne), Palmer and Dobbs (Ulrich) should've just left Ty Hackett (Short) out of their plans. Ty may be down on his luck and on dough, but the guy's got a conscience. And when you're planning a clean heist, you really don't want one of those.

Said crew are security guard units that man armored trucks nos 12 and 17. Mike's the big daddy and the brains of the operation and the others simply follow his instructions. All desperate men, they decide to go with a plan to stash away 42 million dollars that they're supposed to deliver at a checkpoint in a few hours' time and make it look like a 'jacking.

Ty's dad used to work with the guys and the kid, an Iraq war veteran, lands the job easily. The stashing is all but through when an old homeless man is discovered spying on them. Trigger-happy Baines shoots, injuring the geezer. Ty freaks and tries to help the guy to a hospital. Stick to plan, he's warned. He doesn't obey. Mike shoots homeless man at point-blank, killing him on the spot.

Our hero (aisa kaisa hero?) goes and hides in one of the armored trucks. The rest of the movie has the gang trying to smoke him out!

Something wrong with this picture? Plenty! One, Antal isn't that bad a director as he comes across in this one (having worked on films like Vacancy and Kontroll). Two, you have a stellar cast (Fishburne and Reno are veteran action stars, Dillon is good in thrillers, Nolasco and Ulrich have proved themselves on TV) that do nothing but behave like second-rate convicts on parole duty. Three, the action(?) is pretty much stagnant.

Four, you cast a newbie (Short) as the central character and expect him to deliver when he has nothing going for him, not even his talent (or lack of it). And the ending is so lame and so far-fetched, the climax so outrageous, the acting so substandard and the direction so non-existent that I'm surprised it never made it to the Razzies. There's more, but I think you get the picture.

I played along, Palmer. I watched the film right down to the last reel. I'm feeling like jumping off something too, and wonder if my eyes will forgive me for watching this film.




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