Armored

I don’t know if they still make these, but when I was a kid they had these paint by number sets. In the box you would get a piece of canvas with a design drawn on it and in each space would be a number that corresponded to a pot of paint. First you would paint all the ones, then all the twos, and when you were done you had a copy of a famous painting. No matter how careful you were, now matter how good you were at staying in between the lines, when you were done, your copy of a famous painting looked kind of flat. That is how I felt watching the movie Armored.

All heist films have a formula; meet the players, get the plan, engage the plan, something goes wrong, draw to the conclusion. But every once in awhile a film will come along with a new angle or an exciting twist. For example when Die Hard premiered and the bad guys actually had personalities, it was a revelation. More recently there was a British film called The Escapist, this film was a prison break film, which is a close cousin to the heist film, and it shook up the formula by playing with the structure of time. One of my all time favorite heist films was the original Italian Job. It ended with a cliffhanger, literally. But unfortunately, Armored was strictly paint by numbers and there was nothing surprising about it.

I liked the idea of holing up in an armored car for protection and some of the other details that went with that. It was also kind of original that there were no bad guys, so to speak, but visually, editing wise and dialogue wise, there was no spark, no flare, everything was modus operandi. There is no excuse for this because the cast is excellent and deserved more to work with. Matt Dillon, Jean Reno, Laurence Fishburne, Fred Ward, these men are excellent character actors with years of experience. This should have been a better film.

Armored is not a bad film, there is nothing cringe worthy about it, it’s just routine and formulistic. These days if you are going to plunk down twenty bucks or more for a night at the movies you want something good enough to get you out of the house. My recommendation for this film is stay home and rent it. The premise is original enough to invest your time, but the execution of the idea is disappointing. Save your money and have a movie night at home. Don’t let this heist movie rob you of your hard earned cash.

Rating: Rent It Don’t let this heist movie rob you of your hard earned cash.